


Amber Light

by Lantean_Drift



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Atlantis Team, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Genii, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Psychological Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 05:27:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 45,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3162953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lantean_Drift/pseuds/Lantean_Drift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When an old enemy surfaces to threaten Sheppard, Rodney finds himself as both a victim and a key player in a game that could cost Sheppard his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amber Light

Prologue

The climb back to consciousness was neither exciting nor memorable, it was a slow stumble through a heavy grey air of disassociation and disorientation until he was able to blink. Once. Twice. Then, very slowly, he opened his eyes to reveal the stuttering white light of the primitive medical rooms back at base. So, he was alive, at least, and someone had gotten him back to his centre of operations, this was…unexpected. 

Death had seemed inevitable as he’d hit the ground, Sheppard’s bullet lodged in his chest. 

His mind carelessly unfolded, revealing images of the last thing he remembered - Sheppard. Sheppard and his team and a quaint little town. An idiot hailed as the local hero, nothing but a man with some impressive technology that didn‘t belong to him. That fool had claimed to be a friend of the Atlantis team but betrayed them readily enough. 

Sheppard had once again slipped through his grasp but it had been close and he’d made a tremendous mistake in revealing, once and for all, his greatest weakness - his team. His men had caught them, locked them behind bars, lined them up for execution; foolishly self-sacrificing every one of them. Just like Sheppard himself. 

His mind supplied him with an irritating recollection of Sheppard walking back into the town square looking smug and superior, challenging him. Shooting him - a grave error of judgement, especially when Sheppard assumed he was dead from a single shot. 

But he wasn’t dead, he was very much alive right now. He pushed away the thoughts of cold ground underneath him, blue sky fading to grey above him and let a weak smile stretch around the tube shoved in his mouth. 

This time there would be no foolish mistakes - Sheppard would be his. This time Kolya would prove that he was the better man. 

~x~

“Rodney - ” 

“Oh, don’t do that,” Rodney rolled his eyes at Sheppard, currently bouncing on his toes and pestering him from the other side of the lab table. 

“Do what?” Sheppard asked with a look that was obviously supposed to be innocent but fell so far short of the mark that the mark didn’t even exist.

“You know well what, Colonel. Dragging my name out into a pathetic whine that is hitherto unmatched by small children or kicked puppies. I told you, I’m busy.” 

Rodney pointedly started typing on the laptop laid out in front of him. Sheppard stretched himself across the table, braced on his elbows, and propped his chin on the top of the screen, bending it back slightly. 

“Not helping,” Rodney snapped, manfully ignoring how dry his mouth was all of a sudden and strictly not entertaining any thoughts of Sheppard spread out on a lab table, at all. Thank you. 

“Come on, McKay, it’ll be fun.” 

“I’m working.” 

“So take some time off.” Sheppard was pouting, pouting over the top of a laptop screen. Rodney clamped down on any and all thoughts that that image provoked and tried to focus on the issue at hand. Someone had quite clearly drugged Sheppard. 

“Take time off? Do you even realise what goes on in here? What’s the matter with you today, did someone slip something into your coffee - what have I told you about accepting java from the botanists?”

Sheppard closed his eyes and gave one of those huffing little half laughs that hitched his smile up on one cheek; Rodney absolutely did not melt a little inside.

“Come on, Rodney. Elizabeth has cleared us for a full afternoon of R&R. We can take a ‘Jumper to the beach, go surfing…”

“Do I look like a surfer to you, Colonel?” Rodney snapped. 

Sheppard very slowly looked him down and up then met his eyes squarely. There was so much written in that look that Rodney almost wanted to look away and pretend he hadn’t seen it. 

“I could teach you,” Sheppard said very quietly. 

“I can swim,” Rodney said stupidly. 

“Well, that’s a good start,” Sheppard was grinning again, damn him. 

“I have to ask,” Rodney looked down at his laptop keys, carefully avoiding Sheppard’s gaze. “Why not ask someone else, Teyla or Ronon? They’re much more the beach type.”

“Rodney - ” 

“I, sort of, need to know, you see. I mean, Elizabeth hasn’t ordered you to take me out and make me relax or anything insane like that has she? You’re not doing this because you have to?” 

For a moment John looked like he was going to get mad, then something akin to resignation passed over his face. When he spoke it was with a tone Rodney couldn’t quite identify. 

“No, Rodney, no orders, no ulterior motive, no bribes, bets or otherwise. Elizabeth gave us the afternoon off and I want you to come with me to the beach and surf and have fun. Yes, relaxation is part of the program but it’s supposed to go hand in hand with the lack of work and the having fun thing. Who knew you’d be such hard work? Scratch that, I did. Come on, come with me?” 

“I suppose this could wait until tomorrow,” Rodney said graciously, staring down at the laptop. After all, if Sheppard was to be believed he genuinely did want to spend time with Rodney. It was amazing but apparently true and Rodney wasn’t going to let the chance pass him by. 

“Great!” Sheppard beamed. 

“But just so you know, Colonel,” Rodney said, not letting him get away with it that easily, “if I drown or get eaten by the Pegasus shark equivalent, you will be directly responsible for the inevitable downfall of this city. Without my genius Atlantis will sink within a matter of days – perhaps even hours.” 

“Nothing’s going to eat you, McKay. The Wraith are the Pegasus equivalent of sharks and I’m pretty sure they don’t surf, or at least not on our mainland.”

“So reassuring,” Rodney said faintly, as he followed Sheppard from the lab, the two of them heading for the nearest transporter.

“It’s gonna be fun,” Sheppard said, practically bouncing again. 

“You do know that just because you say something enough times doesn’t mean it comes true?” Rodney scowled. 

“Oh, I don’t know.” 

“And what does that mean? ‘Oh, I don’t know’, like you’re some cryptic messenger of fate. Are you really going to make me go surfing? I could just pop back and get my laptop? Right, yes, yes fine, I yield to the power of the eyebrow, the laptop stays in the lab and I get to go out and drown and get salt water in my ears. Fine.” 

“McKay,” Sheppard grinned, “it’s gonna be fun, trust me.” 

Rodney groaned but before he could formulate further comment the emergency claxons went off, flooding the corridors with noise and announcing an unscheduled off-world activation. 

“Lorne’s team are off-world, not due back until tomorrow, earliest,” Sheppard said; the surfer guy shrugged off and the Colonel back in the driver’s seat. Rodney stepped into the transporter, Sheppard directly behind him and selected the Control Tower. 

“What do we know?” Rodney shouted as they stepped in to the melee. Marines were already gathering in position, weapons trained on the ‘gate. Technicians buzzed around every station offering rapid reports and information and Elizabeth stood on the balcony, over-looking it all, her expression pinched in dreaded anticipation.

“We’re receiving Major Lorne’s IDC, Ma’am,” Chuck announced just as Lorne’s voice crackled over the radio, echoing through the Gate Room. 

“Atlantis base, this is Lorne, we’re coming in hot, lower the shield.” 

“Lower it. You’re clear, Major,” Elizabeth replied quickly and in the next second Doctor Parrish came stumbling through. 

“We’re gonna need a medical team,” he panted. He backed up a couple of steps and put his hands on his thighs, taking deep breaths.

“Doctor?” Elizabeth asked, moving down the steps towards him as Sheppard radioed through to Beckett. 

“Evan’s hit,” Parrish coughed out in between breaths, “he says it’s nothing and he’s still moving but he was definitely hit.” 

Just at that moment Lieutenants Johnson and Hannover came flying through the ‘gate, rapidly followed by Major Lorne and what looked like a shower of debris from an explosion of some kind. They landed in a heap on the Gate Room floor; Lorne rolled over onto his back and groaned. Sheppard ran forward and knelt next to him. 

“You okay, Major?” 

“With all due respect, Sir, that ran more like one of your missions than one of mine,” he laughed briefly then reached over to clamp a hand over the bloody gash on his right arm. Sheppard helped him sit up and waved the medical team over to tend to him. 

“Well, you came back in one piece, if a little banged up. Good job,” John grinned as the Major was lead away by the medical staff. 

“We’ll debrief as soon as he’s ready,” Elizabeth said, standing next to John, watching Lorne’s team trail behind him to the infirmary. 

“Surfing’s out?” John asked solemnly.

“I’m afraid so,” Elizabeth smiled and strode away in a way that showed no remorse for crushing John’s hopes of a fun-filled afternoon.

John turned to Rodney, still stood at the top of the stairs. 

“Surfing’s out,” he sighed. 

“Oh, well, some other time maybe,” Rodney smiled in what he hoped was an encouraging way. 

“You don’t have to be so gleeful about it,” Sheppard scowled as he climbed up towards him. 

“I’m not, I was merely trying to remain positive in the face of such bitter disappointment.”

“I hate you,” Sheppard sighed, but Rodney couldn’t help but notice the hand that smoothed across his lower back, directing him gently towards the briefing room. 

“I know,” he grinned, turning his head to share his smile with Sheppard. 

~x~

Lorne’s team had gone to visit prospective trading partners, Sheppard’s team had made first contact a while ago and the people had seemed willing enough to open negotiations. Lorne and his men had been sent through, with specific instructions from Elizabeth, on what should have been purely a routine mission. Unfortunately the simple, ‘willing’ people Sheppard had met with no longer seemed eager to trade and were not going to explain why. Lorne had tried but had soon found the situation hopeless, they had been returning to the ‘gate when they had been ambushed. They’d had Firearms and explosives too advanced for the simple agrarian race they had been hoping to open negotiations with, similar technological level to Earth, America circa 1940s. 

Similar to the Genii, of course. 

Rodney rubbed his hand wearily over his eyes, “I thought we were allies now, why are they attacking our people?” 

“We don’t know that they are,” Elizabeth said with a quelling little hand gesture that immediately irritated Rodney.

“Really? I didn’t realise bullets were a sign of affection, let’s ask Lorne and his bandaged arm just how he feels about that?” 

“What I meant,” Elizabeth said loudly, “was that we don’t know it was the Genii.”

“Yes, yes, I know what you mean. I apologise, it’s just frustrating that’s all.” 

“We all share your frustration, Dr McKay,” Elizabeth said a little coldly and Rodney figured he deserved that and just nodded.

“Question is,” Lorne said, directing the attention of the room in his direction, “if it wasn’t the Genii then who was it?” 

“Good question,” Sheppard muttered looking very uncomfortable. It had been five months since he’d shot Kolya in a showdown worthy of the Wild West. While Rodney was undeniably pleased that the crazy bastard was dead and buried, he hadn’t missed the effect that it had had on Sheppard. It wasn’t every day the Colonel had to look his enemy in the eye as he killed him, it wasn‘t every day the Colonel was reduced to killing. Oh, it had been necessary and Rodney knew that Sheppard was aware that Kolya would have spared them no mercy if he’d been faster on the draw than Sheppard but taking the life of any man weighed heavily on Sheppard’s conscience. Any mention of Kolya or his soldiers always left the Colonel cold and withdrawn until he’d taken the time to rationalise it in his own head. Or Rodney had caught up with him and quietly reminded him that if he hadn’t shot the damn man they’d all be dead now. Rodney had made sure he pointed out that he, for one, would always be grateful to Sheppard for shooting Kolya and staying alive himself because if he had died Rodney didn’t know what he would do. Sheppard had looked slightly stunned at that, but eventually pleased so Rodney figured it had worked out okay. 

“Is it possible,” Elizabeth asked quietly, her eyes focused solely on Sheppard, “that one of Kolya’s men could have stepped up and taken control of his army after his death?” 

John looked at her and shrugged with forced casualness. 

Apparently, he was going to offer nothing further so Rodney stepped in. “I suppose it is possible, I can’t say that any of them struck me as particularly strong-minded, leader types. They did seem rather content to do as Kolya wished rather than think for themselves.” 

“McKay’s right,” Sheppard added, “they were followers not leaders.” 

“How can you be certain?” Elizabeth asked, Rodney grimaced inwardly, it seemed Elizabeth had noticed that her question was met with a defiant shrug but his comments had generated voluntary involvement from Sheppard.

“I’m not certain, I’m absolutely not certain, that’s just the way they seemed to me.” Sheppard leaned back in his chair and flung his arm over the back in a movement that was far too contrived to be anything but staged. His entire upper body leant towards Rodney and he fought the urge to lean in, in return. 

“Okay, I’ll contact Ladon, see if he has any thoughts on the likelihood of Kolya’s apparent heir. In the mean time, extra precautions off-world. Eyes open and ears to the ground, learn anything you can about our possible new enemy, don’t take any situation for granted and don’t dismiss any information as insignificant. All team leaders are to be kept fully aware of even the smallest updates. Thank you, every body.” Elizabeth stood and collected her belongings in a way that quite clearly meant ‘you should leave’ and nodded to each of them as she made her way out. Lorne and his team stumbled away looking tired and ready to collapse, Rodney guessed that in the next five minutes they’d be piled round one of the mess tables inhaling coffee and sharing the last of the not-muffins. 

Teyla and Ronon were next to leave, glancing briefly at John and Rodney and knowing instinctively that they didn‘t need to stay. Zelenka had shoved a pile of paper at Rodney and disappeared so quickly it was if he was never there. That left John and Rodney still seated and showing no signs of moving. There was a few seconds of silence, the pause stretching between them, loud and harsh, like the echo after a gunshot in a small town square. 

Sheppard held himself so still and so stiff that Rodney was afraid he might shatter. Rodney fidgeted but waited, making sure it was clear that he wasn’t going anywhere for a while. Sheppard sighed, sounding more like a hiss, before letting his head fall very slowly to the table, turning his face away from Rodney. 

Rodney looked down at him, unsure what to do. 

“If it’s any consolation,” he tried for levity, “I really would have rather been surfing, too.” 

John laughed, a small breath that shook his frame once but when he didn’t lift his head Rodney just looked around to make sure the doors were closed and slipped his fingers into John’s hair and gently stroked his head. 

“What are we doing, McKay?” John asked quietly. 

“Even on a good day I have no idea,” Rodney smiled sadly. John raised his head and sat up and turned to face Rodney. For a moment they just looked at each other, eyes full of something neither of them would dare to risk. Rodney let his chin drop to his chest and snorted, they really were ridiculous sometimes. 

John stood up, putting out a hand to squeeze Rodney’s shoulder as he did so. 

“Come on,” he said, waiting for Rodney to get to his feet, “we’ve got work to do.” 

“We’ve always got work to do,” Rodney grumbled as he let himself be led from the  
briefing room. 

~x~

Their next mission was to P1X-27Y, it was a first contact, check out the world, spend a couple of days, check in with the people, run for their lives - that sort of thing. 

“You have to stay positive, McKay,” John said as they stood in the Gate Room waiting for Elizabeth to wave them off. “This could be the planet of the plentiful coffee harvest and you’ve already condemned them as savages with spears who are obviously going to attack us.” 

“Tell me, Colonel, how many planets have we found that have bounteous supplies of coffee beans compared to the amount of planets where the natives think we are evil and must be killed in painful and primitive ways?” 

“That doesn’t matter,” John rested his hands on his P90 and bounced on his toes a little, “that was in the past, today we’re getting coffee. I have a feeling.” 

Rodney rolled his eyes. 

“Much as I would love to believe you’re right, my money’s on the primitive death scenario.” 

“Pessimist.” 

“I prefer ‘realist’, of course.”

Ronon strode over to them spinning his gun and placing it neatly in the holster. 

“One day, you’ll do that and shoot yourself in the leg,” Rodney commented almost wistfully. John glared at him, Ronon just shrugged. 

“Not gonna happen, McKay. We good to go?” he asked John.

“Just waiting on Teyla and Elizabeth.” 

The two women were coming down the steps to meet them, Teyla joined the team, Elizabeth wished them luck and that was it, they were stepping through the event horizon. 

They stepped out of the ‘gate and onto a stone dais, a couple of steps down led to a clearing littered with trees that looked like dark evergreens, eventually thickening into the surrounding forest. A clear footpath trailed from the ‘gate and disappeared among the trees. Rodney stepped down from the stone steps and immediately felt the path bounce beneath him. 

“Urgh! The ground’s squishy,” he leaped back up onto the step. “It’s like a marsh or a bog or whatever.” 

“Squishy?” John’s eyebrow arched at Rodney, wry amusement curling his mouth.

“Path’s well worn,” Ronon commented and stepped down. Grinning, he turned and faced Rodney, bouncing on the squashy turf. 

“You won’t find it funny when you sink,” Rodney snapped.

“I believe it will be fine, Rodney.” Teyla was already standing a couple of feet away, testing the ground gracefully. 

“Come on, McKay,” John stepped off the dais and started along the path. “Ronon take point, I’ll take our six.” Ronon nodded and went ahead followed by Teyla, John waited for Rodney, pointedly indicating the way. Rodney sighed but moved along. 

“I hate when my feet get wet, it’s the most uncomfortable thing in the world.”

“It’s not wet, Rodney, just kind of ‘squishy’.”

“Ah, you say that now but when you go through it and end up with mud to your knees you won’t be so sure.” 

Rodney may have been walking in front but he knew John’s eyes were rolling. 

~x~

The village they came across was surprisingly enlightened, they were used to travellers coming through the stargate, had a healthy fear of the Wraith and were willing to talk about possible trade agreements. They were governed by a man named Bosht who was apparently very popular with his townsfolk. His aide had eagerly explained that Bosht had been elected with a higher majority vote than any other governor for over a hundred years. Teyla had asked a number of polite questions and taken an interest in the town and its people as they were led to Governor Bosht’s offices.

Once inside Rodney had been practically twitching with suppressed mirth until they’d been given an excuse to speak alone and he’d been able to point out Bosht’s startling resemblance to a Gungan. John had laughed and agreed, Teyla had rolled her eyes, quite clearly not understanding but disapproving anyway. Rodney had spent the rest of the meeting carefully ignoring John’s eyes for fear of sniggering and offending their host. 

The negotiations had been more of a quick, polite discussion as they’d arrived at the end of the town’s working day but the Governor had agreed to meet with them again in the morning. Teyla tentatively suggested that perhaps only one of them should attend tomorrow’s discussions, the other could keep watch with Ronon. Rodney suggested that it sounded like a job for the team leader. 

~x~

Everything was made of wood here, wooden houses, shops, market stalls, even the roads and pavements were made of strong wooden blocking. It was all very Wild West, Rodney shook off a fleeting memory and a momentary bad feeling. 

“Reckon they have a saloon?” John murmured as they wandered down the main street following their guide. They were being put up in the local inn for the night and a young man had been assigned to show them to their rooms. He wasn’t much of a guide though, he spent most of the time ignoring them and talking into a small hand held device rather like a radio. 

“All the wood makes sense if this planet really is as water-logged as it feels. Their level of technology is quite advanced though; I’m getting some healthy power signatures – not ZPM healthy but electrical generator healthy. We’re talking ‘communications, lights and indoor plumbing’ more than ‘Lost City of the Ancients’ but still, it beats spears and camp fires.” Rodney smiled appreciatively as they were led into the inn; it was warm, comfortable and dry. Their guide deposited them at the bottom of a wooden staircase and left. Rodney was about to say something about the service around here when a huge man, taller and broader than Ronon, stepped up to meet them. 

“I’m Fink,” he gave them a funny head bow which Teyla immediately returned. 

Rodney just kept looking up and up at the giant man. He had a bald head, practically no teeth and a face with more creases than a Sunday newspaper. 

“I’m John, this is Teyla, Ronon and Rodney. Nice to meet you.” 

Well, Sheppard had introduced them all informally, that meant the Colonel didn’t see anything to be wary of. 

“I own this place,” Fink explained, “got a couple of nice rooms free upstairs that you can use. Bosht called me and asked me if I’d feed you, give you a bed and send you back to see him again in the morning. Like I said, I’ve only got a couple of rooms spare tonight but you should be comfortable enough. Just wander down the stairs when you’re hungry and we’ll feed you, kitchen’s always stocked and my wife is an excellent cook. Here you go.” 

He swung the door open to the first room, everything was of course made of wood. Twin beds, table and two chairs, a wardrobe type unit, thick rugs on the floor – simple yet comfortable. Pretty much like the whole town, Rodney thought.

“Teyla, Ronon,” Sheppard nodded them into the room and they went willingly. Fink grinned and led them to the next room, “just call me if you need anything,” he said, pushing the door open and ushering them in. 

“That’s very kind of you, thanks,” Sheppard smiled. 

“Yes, uh, thank you,” Rodney echoed. Fink grinned and left them, they heard him thundering none too delicately down the stairs. Rodney looked at Sheppard, Sheppard looked back at him and the two of them sniggered stupidly. 

“Which bed do you want?” Sheppard asked, already flopping down on the one nearest the door. 

“That one,” Rodney answered pointing to the one Sheppard was lying on just to be contrary. 

“Tough. This one’s mine,” Sheppard grinned. 

Rodney sat on his bed and pulled the notebook from his bag. One thing that had been established back when they first started going off-world together was that when it came to sleeping arrangements Sheppard was in command and Rodney was his civilian. That meant when the team was separated Rodney went with John and slept where he was told. Sheppard always asked him where he wanted to sleep; he just ignored the answer if it differed from his own plan. Rodney was absolutely never going to admit how safe that made him feel. 

~x~

Rodney woke up suddenly in the middle of the night, not sure why, but something had disturbed him. He blinked and tried to focus on the room around him. There was a soft green-yellow light creeping across the room from this planet’s strange moon; it cast eerie shadows across the floor and over Sheppard’s bed. Sheppard wasn’t in his bed, he was standing by the curtain, looking out into the street. He was also the reason there was moonlight spilling into the room in the first place. Rodney took a moment to look at him, body tense, hands curled into punishing fists and his eyes very intensely focused on the road outside their window. Sheppard looked for all the world like a soldier keeping watch, even as he seemed startlingly vulnerable in just his tee shirt and boxers. 

“Colonel?” Rodney called quietly so as not to startle him. Sheppard’s eyes instantly snapped to meet his. Rodney pushed himself up onto his elbows, “what’s wrong?”

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Sheppard replied quietly and turned back to the window. 

“What’s wrong?” Rodney asked again, his tone a little harsher than he’d intended but damn it, Sheppard was acting strange.

“I don’t know,” Sheppard ran his fingers absently through his hair, “something just feels off.” 

“Off?” Rodney pulled back the covers and swung his feet down onto the wooden floor. “Off, how?” 

“I don’t know, just off. Go back to bed, McKay.” 

Sheppard sounded tired, really very tired. 

“Have you slept at all?” Rodney asked as he curled his hands into gentle fists and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. 

“Yes. Now go back to bed,” Sheppard just sounded irritated now. 

“For how long?” 

He didn’t answer but his jaw visibly tightened as Rodney padded over to him, bare feet quiet on warm wooden floorboards. 

“Want me to take over for a bit?” Rodney gestured to the window, “I can look out for anything that’s out of place?” 

Sheppard sighed but shook his head. “It’s fine, really, probably nothing. Something just feels…”

“Off?” 

“Yeah,” Sheppard finally looked at him, a grin just about reaching his eyes. “Sorry I woke you.” 

“I don’t think you did actually, I think I just woke up,” Rodney pushed in a little closer and stood directly behind him, looking out at the town over his shoulder. John leaned back into him and Rodney told himself that friends did this sort of thing all the time. They did this all the time. Sheppard released a slow silent breath and his body seemed to relax against Rodney with a painful slowness. Rodney snaked his arm round and splayed his fingers on John’s stomach, absolutely not holding him close against him.

“What are we doing, Rodney?” 

“You keep asking me that,” Rodney said sadly. 

“Because I never know what the answer is,” John matched his tone. 

“Yes, you do.” 

“I’m tired,” Sheppard straightened up and pushed away, “we should get some sleep.” 

Rodney let him go, let him walk away back to his bed. Rodney couldn’t move, not yet, he was so sick of Sheppard always doing this - and yet he craved it like a drug. The way he would take them right to the edge and then run away, leaving Rodney standing out there alone.

Rodney just stood, hands clenched in helpless fists by his side, almost ashamed to find he was trembling, hell, shaking, with the very real possibility that he was finally coming apart.

“Rodney?” John took a step back towards him but Rodney couldn’t look at him, he just shook his head blindly and turned away, not trusting his voice to give an answer. He tried to think of anything to calm him, distract him from the realisation that was thundering through him and shaking him apart. Equations, schematics, procedures, all flew through his mind, each one elusive, as his thoughts slipped like sand, cascading over one another and leaving him to blow away in the storm. 

John reached out and spun him by the shoulders so they were standing face to face, hands gripped him so tightly it hurt but Rodney couldn’t bring himself to look at John. 

John shook him, trying to make him look up, trying to find his eyes but Rodney refused, he looked everywhere but back at John because he knew he’d reached his breaking point. He knew he couldn’t possibly hide what would be plainly written across his face. John’s grip tightened painfully and Rodney pushed him away, a shove to the centre of his chest, strong enough to send John stumbling backwards. 

Immediately he was back and reaching for Rodney again, Rodney flung out an arm to ward him off but John pushed around it and grabbed his arms. Rodney flicked his hands out to throw off the grasp, he was shaking and he felt weak and he just couldn’t take this from John right now. John’s hands were everywhere, reaching for him again and again, Rodney tried to push him off but he kept coming. He moved in closer and wrapped his arms around Rodney’s back and dragged him tight against him, chest to chest. Rodney struggled but John refused to let go and, oh god, John was shushing him, his breath hot against Rodney’s ear. Rodney was more than a little distressed to finally recognise that the whimpered moans and harsh breaths were coming from him and he stilled suddenly in John’s arms.

For a moment the only movement was their ragged breathing and the tremble of impossibility that seemed to course through both of them. 

Slowly, John’s arms moved, his grip loosened and his hands ran soothingly over Rodney’s back, adjusting to hold him gently rather than restraining him. One hand travelled up Rodney’s spine, his neck, and into his hair where it settled, cupping the back of his head. 

Rodney barely dared to breathe as he brought his hands up to touch John, at first small tentative brushes, the back of his fingers skimming very lightly against John’s stomach and around his ribs. Then, surer than he felt, he slid his hand under John’s t-shirt and traced his thumb round the soft warm skin at his waistline. John’s breathing hitched against Rodney’s ear and he couldn’t stop himself from wrapping his arms around John and stepping in closer. He buried his face into the crook of John’s neck and just breathed him in, feeling so raw and needy. 

“Please don’t ask me what we’re doing, please don’t,” oh god, was that his voice? It couldn’t be, that voice was broken and surely that couldn’t be his. 

John’s hand tightened in his hair and he was being pulled back, brought face to face with John, eyes bright, terrified and hopeful at the same time. 

“I know exactly what we’re doing, Rodney.” 

For a second they hung there, suspended by their own hesitation, so close they breathed for each other. Then John’s lips covered his, hot and determined and desperate. Rodney kissed him back, eager and sure and painfully aware that this was everything he’d ever wanted. John’s breath was hot against his face when they pulled back enough to drag a few harsh breaths then they kissed again, just as intense, just as insistent. 

“John,” Rodney whispered pointlessly, simply needing to taste the precious name in his mouth, “John.” 

Rodney’s hands moved across John’s back, dragging him in, closer still. They pushed together and both of them broke off to gasp at the friction of bodies meeting. Rodney moved back in for another kiss, trying to pull John’s shirt off at the same time. 

John broke away long enough to untangle them and drag his own shirt over his head and divest Rodney of his moments later. Rodney made himself useful and reached out, hooking his finger into the waistband of John’s boxers and pulling them off, discarding them, and his own, to the floor. 

Then Rodney stopped, stunned when he looked at John, totally naked in the wash of the yellow moonlight and looking incredible. Rodney swallowed slowly and reached out to touch him, his fingertips brushing over dark, hard nipples and then spreading out to feel the warm, solid planes of his chest. Across, moving over his heart, to tangle with the dog tags, using them to pull John closer. 

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered against John’s lips, swallowing the whimper that followed his kiss. 

They were skin against skin and Rodney had never felt anything so amazing in his life, John was turning them and pushing him back towards the bed. 

“I want you, right now,” John growled and toppled them, landing on top of Rodney and quickly scrabbling to climb up and straddle him. Rodney groaned and immediately shifted to lie in the centre of the bed, all too happy to let John take them where they needed to be. John moved with him, lithe and so graceful that Rodney couldn’t stop himself from surging up beneath him and desperately claiming his mouth. John pushed his tongue into Rodney’s mouth just as his hand pushed between Rodney’s legs, moving them apart so that he could drop down between them. Their cocks met in delicious contact and Rodney groaned. 

“John, John,” he grabbed John’s ass and pulled him hard against him, making John cry out and thrust wildly against him. Rodney lifted his legs and wrapped them around him, creating a sweeter angle and driving them harder. 

John kissed him again, short sharp kisses in between cries of pleasure and Rodney was lost, lost to John forever. 

John’s hand squeezed between their bodies and gripped both their cocks and Rodney came right then, crying out John’s name. John gasped, thrust once more then came as well. He dropped down on top of Rodney, who took his weight willingly and wrapped his arms around John’s hot, sweaty body as he trembled and whispered ‘Rodney, god, Rodney, Rodney, fuck, Rodney’ against his neck. Rodney had a couple of seconds to catch his breath himself before John stiffened against him and suddenly grabbed for him, desperately lost in some wild, inexplicable panic; Rodney let John tangle them together and grip him tightly, then he slipped his hand into John’s hair and shushed him, taking his turn to soothe. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Rodney whispered against his ear and felt John relax. “Sleep,” he murmured, “we’re going to sleep now.” 

John mumbled something indistinguishable, lifted his head up and kissed Rodney sloppily then settled back down, wrapping around him again. Together, they slept.

~x~

It was the very early hours of this miserable planet’s morning; the moonlight was still strong, lighting up the patches of forest where Kolya was positioning his men. They had received an intelligence report from their friends on this world - Sheppard and his team were here. Kolya had sent a spy into the town to confirm the information but in the meantime they would take their positions and wait. 

Kolya was a patient man, he’d waited many months for this, spent more hours than he’d care to count in recovery, thinking only of the day he would be able to put his plan into action and make Sheppard pay for all that he had done. 

Everything was kept very simple - quick and easy - don’t give them chance to react. His men would ambush Sheppard’s team as they returned to the ‘gate and gas them with a beautiful cocktail developed by one of his own men – guaranteed to knock them unconscious between one breath and the next. Then they would snatch their trophy. 

That was it, nothing fancy, nothing complicated, just a fast extraction – take McKay and leave Sheppard. It had always been about destroying Sheppard, Kolya thought, and he had learned long ago that the quickest way to make Sheppard bleed was to cut Dr McKay. 

~x~

Okay, completely naked then. Rodney blinked slowly into wakefulness. Oh, and completely alone. John wasn’t in the bed, he wasn’t even in the room. Rodney had just enough time to roll over and bury his head in his pillow, praying that John wasn’t off somewhere regretting what had happened last night, when the door banged open. 

John stood there, fully dressed, hair stupidly crafted, smiling like an idiot. 

“Oh god, you’re a morning person,” Rodney groaned and buried his head back into the pillow. 

“You knew that already, McKay,” John said kicking the door closed and navigating around his own, unused bed, heading towards Rodney’s. 

“Fine, you’re a morning-after-sex-when-we-should-be-lazily-snuggling person then.” 

“Snuggling?” John asked and his grin widened as he crawled onto the end of Rodney’s bed. 

Rodney swallowed, “I, uh, I like snuggling, manly snuggling,” he raised his chin defiantly, daring John to make something of it. 

“I like the sound of that, ‘manly snuggling’,” John was now crawling up Rodney, carefully not touching him until they came face to face. 

“Good morning, Doctor,” he practically purred and Rodney felt something hot and exciting explode in his stomach. 

“Oh, that is so unbelievably hot.” 

John lowered his head for a kiss, their lips meeting fast and insistent until John slowed them, sweetening the movement until it became perfectly undemanding. John broke away with a series of smaller kisses and Rodney gave a dramatic ‘oof as John dropped all his weight down on him, sprawling carelessly. 

“You great oaf, are you trying to wind me?” Rodney grumbled even as he wrapped his arms around John and buried his nose into dark, spiky hair.

“You should get dressed,” John said, his words hot against Rodney’s neck, “we have to go and see Bosht soon.” 

“Mmmhmm,” Rodney agreed, not moving an inch. John’s hand was roving up and down his chest and it wasn’t exactly inducing the urge to put clothes on. 

“You should get naked,” Rodney suggested, “Bosht can wait.” 

“Now that wouldn’t be very good for interplanetary relations, would it?” John asked, already kissing his way across Rodney’s chest. 

“No but just – ah god – just think,” Sheppard’s perfect teeth were clamped over his nipple and Rodney lost the ability to speak. 

“Just think, what?” John asked, just before dipping his head back down to caress the sensitised flesh with a very talented tongue. 

“Huh?” Rodney gasped, throwing one hand over his head to grip the top of the bed and using the other to guide John to his other nipple. 

“Speechless? Cool.”

John kissed his way down Rodney’s body, shoving blankets out of the way in the process. Rodney was all for this course of action and by the time John reached his straining erection Rodney was whimpering. Even more so when John took a broad swipe along the underside of his cock with his tongue, then climbed off the bed.

“Easy, easy, come on, Rodney,” John kneeled on the floor and pulled Rodney round so his legs were spread either side of John’s shoulders. He leaned forward and swallowed Rodney as far as he could, hollowing his cheeks and sucking him. Rodney shouted unintelligibly and flung his arms out, he tangled his hands in the sheets and twisted them furiously around his fingers. It was fast and dirty and fantastic and in no time Rodney was coming in John’s mouth, coming so hard his whole body shook. 

Rodney swore and panted and gave himself a minute to catch his breath before he sat up and pulled John to his feet. Positioning him right in front of his face, he swiftly undid John’s belt and pants and reached into his boxers, pulling out his cock. It was hot and heavy and so smooth in his hand and Rodney took his time, slowly enclosing his lips around the shaft and pulling back with the slightest graze of teeth. 

John moaned his name and thrust his hands into Rodney’s hair, not holding him, just touching. Rodney speeded up his movements, knowing John wouldn’t last long. He opened his throat and took John’s cock in down to his balls, hummed low and deep in his throat and swallowed when John came thick and fast. 

Flushed and panting for breath Rodney leaned forward and laid his head against the cotton of John’s t-shirt. Trembling fingers carded through Rodney’s hair and he reached up to wrap his arms around John’s waist, grinning as his face pressed against warm material. 

“Ungh,” John said succinctly. 

“Yeah,” Rodney agreed, stretching up to receive the kiss he knew was coming. 

~x~

The morning had been a complete success, Fink had served them the most delicious breakfast they’d had since leaving Earth, though Rodney had avoided the juice, just in case. Then he’d taken them back to meet with Bosht and Teyla had offered to do the negotiations, noting gently that it wasn’t a particular forte for any of the men on the team. They had been forced to agree, these people could be useful trading partners, after all, so they let her get on with it. 

Sheppard had complained once or twice that something still felt ‘off’ in the town this morning but Ronon said he hadn’t noticed anything and Rodney couldn’t distinguish anything out of the ordinary either. 

“Okay, just stay alert,” Sheppard had ordered as he’d gripped his P90 and stared out along the wooden boardwalk that led out of town. 

A while later Rodney excused himself from the room where negotiations were taking place and took a heavy tankard of cold water out to Sheppard who hadn’t moved from the front of the hall, pacing the decking like a dog on guard. 

“You okay?” Rodney asked, handing him the water. 

“Thanks,” Sheppard accepted it and took a grateful swig. “Yeah, I just have this prickling feeling at the back of my neck. I think we should pack up and ship out as soon as Teyla’s done. Where’s Ronon?” 

“He said something about checking out the area,” Rodney answered. 

“Yeah but that was ages ago,” Sheppard muttered and tapped his radio. “Ronon, come in, please.”

“Go ahead, Sheppard,” came the rumbled response, sounding slightly amused. 

“Yeah, what’s your location?” 

“Right opposite you,” there was a pause as Rodney and Sheppard searched the street and the boardwalk across from them. 

“And up,” Ronon added. 

They lifted their heads and saw Ronon sat on the flat roof of what looked rather like a general store. He was two stories up, on the edge of the building, facing the road into town with his legs dangling over the side and a big grin on his face as he twisted to wave to them.

Rodney snorted and gave a short wave back. 

“Hey, how much can you see from up there?” Sheppard asked.

“Not as much as I’d hoped,” Ronon answered, the slight disappointment evident in his voice. “There’s a pretty clear view of the walk into town and I can just about make out the top of the Stargate and sort of see the clearing but nothing useful. You can’t see shit for all the trees.” 

“He’s been spending too much time with the marines,” Rodney commented lightly, feeling a slightly disturbing wave of affection for his team that he would never admit to anyone. 

“Reckon you might be right,” John said with a dorky grin that made Rodney wonder whether he was somehow unknowingly broadcasting his warm fuzzies. The thought made him shudder. 

“Okay then, cowboy,” John was talking to Ronon again, watching him perched on the roof, “let us know if you do see anything useful and don’t fall over the damn edge.” 

“What’s a ‘cow-boy’?” Ronon asked, twisting back to look down at them again. 

“Err, I’ll explain later. Sheppard out.” 

Rodney couldn’t help but laugh and he didn’t care what John said about something feeling ‘off’, everything felt pretty good to him right now. 

~x~

Of course, that all changed on the way back to the ‘gate. 

Preliminary talks with Bosht had gone well and Teyla had set up another meeting for representatives from Atlantis to return within the next few days. Ronon hadn’t fallen off any buildings and nothing of John’s ‘off’ feeling had manifested in spear throwing or any other attempt on their lives. Fink had met them after their meeting was done and given them a small bag with four pieces of a cake like creation for the walk back to the ‘gate. Sheppard had laughed but accepted the bag graciously and agreed that they would come back and visit Fink again sometime when they could. 

The trek back to the stargate wouldn’t take them too long, but it was already way past midday when they left the town and although the sun hadn’t gone down, the afternoon had turned grey. The path led them through the forest for part of their route and under the canopies of the thickest trees it seemed almost dark. 

Rodney had fallen into a comfortable silence alongside Sheppard, both of them watching the ground as they navigated their way over the thickest tufts of the squishy forest floor. Ahead, Teyla and Ronon were also walking quietly, exchanging the odd word occasionally. 

Just as they were about to step into the clearing Sheppard threw his arm across Rodney’s torso, stopping him dead. 

“Something’s wrong.”

“Colonel, we’re thirty seconds from the ‘gate, what could possibly - ”

“Something’s wrong,” he growled and Rodney fell silent, Sheppard was serious, something had spooked him. Rodney didn’t move at all other than to shift his eyes to look around him quickly. Teyla and Ronon had realised that Sheppard and Rodney had stopped and were now backing slowly into the tree line. 

It was obviously too little, too late. 

Swift shouts and missiles suddenly flew towards them, falling just short of their position and rolling into the trees to land by their feet. Shit. Battered looking silver canisters were spewing out a heavy gas in great smoky clouds, surrounding them in seconds. Rodney barely had time to register their presence before his vision blurred and the soft forest floor lurched up to meet his face. 

Then there was only blackness.

~x~

Sheppard rolled onto his back, and coughed himself into heavy wakefulness. His throat hurt like a bitch and his chest ached like someone was sitting on it. He flailed his arms, checking there wasn’t someone actually sitting on his chest. For a crazy moment he imagined Rodney lying across his chest, lifeless and broken and he was on his feet before he’d even finished opening his eyes. 

His head swam and his stomach lurched sickeningly, he just made it down onto his hands and knees in time to vomit all over the forest floor. Sucking in a desperate breath and trying to blink his vision clear, he looked round for his team. Rodney hadn’t been lying across him, Rodney wasn’t lying anywhere, he was gone. 

Sheppard peered at the tree line knowing he needed to move but his head was so woolly and his limbs wouldn’t obey even basic orders. Fuck, fuck, fuck – where was Rodney? No sign of him anywhere. Sheppard’s stomach lurched again and his heart thundered up into his throat. Found then lost in the space of a day – you never could look after anything important, his mind supplied viciously. 

Then Teyla was moving, rolling up to do as Sheppard just did. He moved forward and swept her hair back from her face, holding it for her as she emptied the contents of her stomach. She murmured her thanks and swept the back of her hand over her face. 

Ronon was still out cold next to them, there was a canister lying right by his face and Sheppard figured he’d taken twice the dose they had when he’d landed so close to the gas. 

“Check Ronon,” Sheppard snapped at Teyla as he stumbled to his feet, looking around.

“Rodney,” he called, already suspecting that it was pointless. 

“Rodney! Damn it.” 

“Dr McKay is missing,” Teyla said, rather stupidly, in Sheppard’s opinion. Of course Dr McKay was missing, why else would he be stumbling round blindly shouting for him if he was still here. 

“Yeah. McKay! McKay!” Sheppard shouted and fell back among the trees still calling but knowing he was wasting his breath. “God-fucking-damn it!” 

The trees didn’t answer his shout. 

“Colonel, we must contact Atlantis, get help, a medical team and a search party,” 

Teyla said, entirely too reasonably. 

“It won’t do any good. He’s the other side of the galaxy by now and I fucking knew something was wrong. I knew and I did nothing! Good one, you fucking idiot,” he berated himself. 

“Colonel,” Teyla said sharply. 

“Yeah, yeah okay,” Sheppard tried to pull himself together but everything was so close to unravelling completely that he didn’t think it was possible.

“Is Ronon okay?” Sheppard suddenly felt like a complete shit for not checking sooner. He went over to them, Ronon was still lying on the floor but his eyes were open. He turned his head towards Sheppard when he knelt down by him. 

“Can’t see shit,” Ronon mumbled.

“And not just for the trees,” Sheppard said quietly and put his hand on Ronon’s shoulder. 

“How about we get you home, big guy?”

Ronon nodded then winced like that had been a very bad idea. 

“Gonna - ” was all he managed to say before Sheppard rolled him onto his side and he hurled half-heartedly onto the grass. “I don’t feel so good,” Ronon moaned and tried to curl in on himself. Sheppard pulled him onto his back again, alarmed at the way Ronon’s eyes fluttered and his skin seemed drained of all its colour. 

“Go dial the ‘gate,” Sheppard ordered, looking briefly at Teyla, “get a medical team through and make sure they know he’s been gassed. We’re also going to need search teams, just in case Rodney’s still here somewhere.” 

Teyla nodded then she was running through the clearing; the sound of the DHD being dialled could be heard in no time. 

“Okay, buddy, just breathe easy, we’re gonna get you home.” Sheppard figured it was the least he could do having lost one of his team today already. A wave of fury swept through him at the thought, he had known something was wrong. He should have pulled out and taken Rodney home when he had the chance. 

Sheppard looked up to see Teyla shutting down the ‘gate so that it could be re-dialled from Atlantis and the teams they’d requested sent through. He was unsurprised to see Lorne’s team stepping through first, once the wormhole had been re-established. 

Lorne waited until the medical team, including Carson, had filed in behind him then lead them over to Sheppard and Ronon. 

“Sir?” 

“Major, organise a search, sweep the forest and the local town. There’s a guy in the hotel, he’s a friendly, will probably help or give us a little intel. I want you to double check every fucking inch of this place. And double time it.” 

“Yes sir, what are we searching for?”

“Dr McKay,” Sheppard snapped. 

Lorne looked around, obviously shocked that he’d missed the scientist’s absence. Then he was gone, dividing up the military personnel, sending the teams to various locations, stressing the importance of a successful search. 

“Colonel?” Carson pulled Sheppard’s attention back to the medical scene unfolding next to him. 

“Uh, we took a dose of gas, knocked us clean out in seconds, Ronon fell right next to the canister, don’t know how much he breathed in but it was a damn sight more than the rest of us. Vomiting, dizziness, weakness, blurred vision, Teyla and I were able to shake it off after a couple of minutes. Ronon said he couldn’t see shit when he woke up and didn’t even have enough strength to roll himself over when he hurled.”

Ronon growled at him from beneath the oxygen mask that had been forced over his mouth. 

“Hey, I’m just telling the doc the facts,” Sheppard explained. 

“Okay,” Carson interrupted, turning to his own team, “let’s get him back, I’m not happy, I think he’s hypotenive, I need to get him to the infirmary and run an EKG so I have a better idea of exactly what we’re dealing with.”

“What does that mean?” John asked. 

“It means he’s possibly suffering bradycardia arrhythmia, his heart’s output has decreased and so has the arterial pressure, it’s why he’s barely conscious.” 

Sheppard just nodded and watched the medical team lift Ronon onto the stretcher. 

“Teyla,” Sheppard called, “go with Beckett and Ronon, get checked out and let Elizabeth know what’s going on.” 

“Er, you should come back as well, Colonel,” Carson interjected, “you need to be checked out too.” 

“I’m fine, Doc, I have to join the search.” 

“I understand that, lad, but you should come back with us, once you’ve got the all clear Elizabeth will send you back through, I’m sure.” 

“I’m fine, really.” 

He turned back to Teyla, ignoring the way she was scowling at him, “tell Elizabeth someone will report in on the hour, every hour. Ask her to send Zelenka and some ‘gate technicians through, see if we can get anything on where they gated to, if they left here. Leave me your extra clips.” 

“John,” she said appealingly, even as she pulled the spare ammo from her vest and handed it over, “you should come back with us.” 

“I can’t, not yet, not until I’m certain he’s – until we find – just not yet, okay?” 

Teyla nodded and bowed her head to him, then she took the corner of Ronon’s stretcher from one of the medical personnel and led them to the ‘gate. 

He watched them go, with half of his team safely home he could focus on the only thing that mattered now, finding Rodney and bringing him back.

~x~

Rodney groaned and rolled over, his head was killing him and his mouth was dry and bitter and repulsive even to him. He’d woken up a few hours ago and chucked-up all over the floor. He’d stayed awake long enough to find he was alone and locked up before crawling to the far side of his cell, curling up and passing out again. 

Tentatively stretching his legs out, he blinked up at the unremarkable ceiling until he had a clear view of the light fixtures. His cell seemed to be made up of half a room and a wall of bars. No window, no skylight, just a concrete floor, a pallet bed and a toilet with a little alcove next to it that he assumed held a sink. He thought about going to check it out but decided he should probably save some excitement for later. Besides, he wasn’t a hundred percent sure he could get up yet, even if he wanted to. 

He rolled back onto his side so he could see through the bars. In the other half of the room, beyond his reach, was a wooden table, square, boring, like everything else in this place – completely unremarkable. A couple of chairs were tucked underneath it and his boots, vest, pack and weapons piled on top of it. Rodney sighed, John and Ronon would probably have been able to McGyver a small pulley system using one of Ronon’s concealed weapons, some gum and a piece of the Colonel’s hair to retrieve their weapons before using the same device as contained explosive that would free them from their imprisonment. 

Rodney sighed; he had no concealed weapons, not a single stick of gum and not enough hair to make pulling it out anything but a waste. He ran a quick inventory of what he did have at his disposal; jacket, tee shirt, pants, boxers, socks, loss of hope, certain death. Good, good, he had all the essentials for being held captive by an, as yet, unknown enemy. 

Also, he was hungry. 

“Okay,” he told himself, “time to find out what’s going on. Get up.” For a moment his body didn’t seem to want to listen. 

“Get up, get up, get up.” He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled over to the bars. 

“Hey,” he called, wrapping his fingers around the metal and resting his forehead against them. He was disgusted with how weak and small his voice sounded. 

“Hey!” He tried again, louder this time. “Hey! Idiots, morons! Oh, woefully-ignorant-of-the-horror-to-come kidnappers! Hello? Dead people!” 

“Dead people? Is that what you think?” 

Oh fuck. This man? This man he knew, this man was hard to ignore. He stepped through the door and stood directly in front of Rodney.

“Oh great,” Rodney sighed, “I told him, I told him, I said to him ‘Colonel, the only mistake you made back there was not firing another bullet into that sick fucking bastard’s head!’ But did he listen to me? Does he ever? I would say it’s nice to see you, Kolya, but I was really rooting for you being dead and buried so you’ll excuse me if I seem somewhat disappointed that you’re still breathing.” 

“Well, my dear Dr McKay,” Kolya said, smiling without a trace of true emotion, “it’s good to see you’ve recovered from the effects of the gas. I’m still intrigued though, ‘dead people’?”

“Yes, ‘dead people’, that’s what you and your band of Merry Men will be when my team catches up with you. And I’m not your ‘dear’ anything, by the way.” 

Kolya laughed, “We won’t even be on this planet when your team gets here and they will get here, do not fear that they won’t. In fact, my contacts are leaking information on your whereabouts as we speak. It should only take them a couple of days to figure out where you are. And until then, you are mine.” 

Kolya stepped closer to the bars and Rodney took an involuntary step back at the look of sheer hatred in his eyes. 

“You’re my bait in a trap to catch the man who has become somewhat of a thorn in my side.”

Rodney closed his eyes, breathing sharply through his nose as his jaw tightened and his fists squeezed uselessly at his sides. 

“Sheppard shot you,” he bit out, “why can’t you realise that the better man won? Just be thankful you’re not dead and move on.” 

“Because I want him dead, Dr McKay, I want him cold and lifeless at my feet, having died in agony, begging for the mercy of death.”

“That’s never going to happen,” Rodney said quietly, feeling his blood run cold in his chest, his heart thumping fast and heavy, “never.” 

“Oh, it will. You’re going to help me make it happen.” 

It was Rodney’s turn to laugh now, “Right, of course I am. Well, in that case, why don’t you just send me home and I’ll ask him to pop by and see you sometime, whenever he has a minute to spare for a horrible painful death. Or are you going to lure him here and booby trap the door so a bucket of water falls on his head? That’s about the level of your pitiful technological advances, is it not?” 

“Are you always this obnoxious, Dr McKay?” 

“You still have to ask after all the times we’ve met?” 

“Yes, I suppose I should know better by now.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Rodney said lightly, “the most common form of idiocy is continuously making the same mistake. Something you’re quite adept at by now, wouldn’t you say?” 

“Don’t push me, Dr McKay.” 

Kolya may have growled at him, but Rodney was on a roll and for a moment all his death meant was sparing John the reason to walk into their trap. He was surprisingly ready for it, if it worked. 

“Why? What will you do? Lock me up in a cell and threaten my friends? You can’t kill me, Kolya, you need me, you said so yourself. Sheppard won’t come unless he has proof that I’m here.” 

“Then perhaps I should send him your eyes?” Kolya snarled and reached for Rodney through the bars. 

Rodney backed up until he hit the far wall and screwed his eyes tightly shut. 

“As long as you’re alive, Sheppard will come. You don’t necessarily have to be in one piece.” Kolya paused long enough to pull something from inside his tunic. 

“My men call this a ‘charge gun’; it’s a handy contraption, maximum pain, very little damage – in comparison to some other weapons, any way.” 

He aimed it lazily at Rodney who had just enough time to recognise its similarity to an Earth Taser gun and turn his back to the bars before he was hit by two little wire-anchored metal pins that cut through his shirt and burrowed into his skin. There was a second of horrendous anticipation before Kolya pulled the trigger. A loud clicking sound could be heard under Rodney’s screams as his body was hit with wave after wave pain so intense it had knocked him off his feet in seconds. Rodney writhed wildly, trying to escape it but he couldn’t get away, his blood was on fire, his nerves were being singed, he was burning from the inside out, pain licking through him with every jolting movement. 

When he’d screamed himself dry and all he could do was sob brokenly, Kolya turned the device off and yanked at the wires, ripping the pins out of his back. Rodney was barely aware of the torn skin or the trickle of blood that leaked from each tear. He just lay on the cool cement-like floor and concentrated on breathing, wishing unconsciousness would take him. 

“Perhaps from now on you’ll learn to be a little more courteous,” Kolya sneered. 

“Go to hell,” Rodney managed on a gasped breath. 

“Then again, perhaps not. I shall be back to see you in a while, my dear Dr McKay.” 

Rodney shuddered, more intent on fighting the urge to be sick for a second time rather than listening to Kolya. He tried to lift his head and quickly decided that that would be a very bad idea and instead just closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, wishing selfishly that John would come soon. 

Rodney heard the door to the room close and knew he was alone once again, he would have moved to the bed but he didn’t have the strength and every movement hurt like hell. So, he just lay on the floor and couldn’t stop himself from thinking of John, of last night, of how it was just typical that they had finally found something good just to have it snatched away so suddenly. Story of his life, he thought. He just prayed John would come out of this unharmed, even if he didn’t. 

“Please stay where you are,” he whispered into the empty room, knowing John couldn’t hear him and wouldn’t listen to him even if he could. 

~x~

John thought open the door to his quarters and yanked his jacket, tossing it on the bed with such force that it sailed right over it and hit the far wall before crumpling heavily to the ground. His boots followed, toed off and kicked across the room with a satisfyingly resounding thump as they impacted with the wall and the desk. 

Elizabeth had ordered him back to be checked out and debriefed, John had argued, they’d just found a lead and he had to follow it up. Elizabeth had insisted that he come back, Lorne and his team were now gating to an entirely different planet to chase up their only link to Rodney. 

And John was pretty fucking furious about that. 

Turns out the kid that had escorted them round the town and over to Fink’s place was the one that had reported their whereabouts. Only he didn’t know to whom or why, just knew the guy was a friend of a friend and lived, quite literally, a world away. He’d told them how stills – photos - of John’s team had come across his path and that there was a reward for reporting them if they were seen. John was quite clearly pissed as hell at him and the kid wasted no time in telling them everything he knew and pointing them in the direction of his contact. This was like living the same shit on a different planet. 

John had radioed in to Atlantis to check on Ronon and let them know they’d be following this development and that was when Elizabeth had insisted he come back. 

Rodney was his scientist; he should be out with the search teams. 

He had sat through Carson’s examination with ill grace, answered his questions tersely and practically run from the infirmary when he was cleared. Now he was expected to clean up and report to Elizabeth as soon as possible. 

John yanked his t-shirt over his head and just let it drop to the floor. He tackled his pants as he stepped through into the bathroom and his chest burned painfully as he remembered Rodney’s hands at his belt earlier today. He stood still for a moment and choked on the echo of Rodney’s arms around his waist, his cheek pressed to John’s stomach, as he had been this morning. 

John grabbed his belt and tugged it with unnecessary force, pulling it free and shoving it and his pants off and onto the floor. He stepped into the shower, making sure the flow of water was painfully hot and the pressure was punishing. 

Damn Elizabeth, he should be there; he should be out bringing Rodney home. He scrubbed at his skin, watching it turn pink to red and not caring that it was stinging. 

He needed to be out there, looking, searching - finding - Rodney. Needed to bring him home, needed to touch him so much. He had known that after last night, being apart for even a second today was going to be hard – the new freedom to touch each other at will would have been hard to avoid if today had been a normal day. John had never imagined it would feel like this; that it would be so painful to be denied the one thing he wanted more than anything. He wondered if it would’ve felt this bad if last night had never happened - hell, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he wanted to be able to reach out and touch Rodney, wanted to kiss him and feel him come alive beneath him. 

John slammed his hand against the wall of the shower and hung his head. A harsh breath, that he refused to acknowledge as anything more than that, was all he allowed himself before straightening up and leaving the shower. He dried quickly and dressed efficiently, fuelling his movements with the anger he felt quickening inside him. He would go to Elizabeth, he would debrief quickly and calmly and then he would get back out there and bring Rodney home. 

~x~

The next time Kolya came to his cell, he brought Rodney food. Only just enough to lift his low blood sugar from dangerous levels but it was something. He’d also brought something that looked like an old fashioned flash-bulb camera. Rodney was pretty sure that did not bode well. He ate his food in silence, drank the cup of water they’d given him and waited. 

Kolya hadn’t said a word, just taken the plate from him when he was done and passed it back to a guard on the other side of the bars. Then he turned back and punched Rodney in the face, so completely without warning or provocation that Rodney was unprepared and went from sitting to being sprawled, bleeding, across the floor. 

“What the hell - ?” he spluttered, spitting blood onto the front of his jacket, hastily wiping it on his sleeve at the same time as trying to pick himself up off the floor.

“We’re just trying to create the right image, Dr McKay. This,” Kolya told him, pointing to the camera that had also been passed to the guard, “will take stills of you that we can then send to Atlantis to prove we have you.” 

He swung his arm and Rodney flinched but Kolya just laughed, until Rodney raised his head a little then he punched him again, catching him right across the cheek. 

Rodney picked his face up off the floor and leaned his head briefly against his forearm as he paused on all fours before pushing himself back up again. There was a bright flash of the bulb and Rodney knew that moment had just been catalogued to taunt his friends. 

“There’s no point, you don’t have an IDC, anything you send to Atlantis will just hit the ‘gate’s iris. You do remember how effective our shielding is, don’t you, Kolya?” 

Rodney lost more blood to his jacket and the floor with the next blow but felt a little better about the fact that at least his comments had earned that one. 

The bulb flashed again, no doubt a fetching still of him with a swollen eye and blood dribbling down his face. At least he was still on his knees and not face down on the floor in that one. 

“Don’t worry, we don’t need an IDC, we’re sending a messenger into the city with one of your teams. Oh, and just in case that doesn’t work we’re sending copies to my friend and yours – Ladon Radim. I know he’ll pass on the message, desperate as he is for the approval and friendship of your Dr Weir. Just one more, I think, to really capture the moment,” Kolya grabbed Rodney’s hair and backhanded him viciously. 

Another picture. Kodak moment, Rodney guessed - an action shot. 

Kolya’s hand remained in his hair, tilting his head back, revealing the full extent of the damage for the camera, which flashed again and again.

“Finally, one of myself and my dear Doctor, just to let your Colonel Sheppard know what he’s caused.” 

Kolya grabbed Rodney’s jaw and squeezing tight enough to make Rodney cry out, he yanked their heads together and smiled for the camera. 

“There we go,” he said, discarding Rodney, letting him drop to the floor like a broken toy, “all done. Oh, I must not forget - ” Kolya reached down and hauled Rodney upright. He stripped him of his jacket and used it to wipe the blood from Rodney’s face. “We’ll send that too,” he waved the blood stained garment in Rodney’s face, “In case the message isn’t clear enough.” 

“You’re a sadistic bastard, Kolya,” Rodney spat as he pushed himself over to the wall and turned his face against its cool smooth surface. 

“Have you only just realised that, Dr McKay, after all of the times we’ve met?” Kolya taunted as he left the cell. 

The door slammed behind him, solid and unforgiving. Rodney closed his eyes and damned the man to hell. 

~x~

That night Rodney lay on his pallet, struggling to sleep but unable to stay alert. His mind wandered to John and he thought about the night before, about how tonight should have been spent in a similar way. They should have been wrapped around one another, touching without reserve and making out like teenagers. Instead, they were worlds apart, he was here – wherever the hell ‘here’ was and John was back on Atlantis. 

Rodney wouldn’t let himself consider the thought that John was anywhere but on Atlantis, safe at home. 

It was moments like these that put things into a painful perspective. He and John had been stupidly dancing around each other for so long. Fleeting smiles, easy touches that lingered just a moment too long; the warmth of that simple contact had been a source of unspoken comfort for them both, but now made his chest ache in an unfamiliar way. 

Rodney thought about all the times John had come to find him in the lab late at night, long after all the other scientists had gone to bed. He would rib Rodney about staying up so late, bully him into going to bed by stealing whatever piece of Ancient technology he was working on and pocketing it until Rodney agreed to sleep. It had been a guilty pleasure to stay still when John walked into the lab, stay standing with his back to the door. He would appear to focus intensely on whatever work was in front of him, just for show - they both knew it was always just for show. John would move in, close behind him, peer over his shoulder and ask what he was doing. Rodney would shift subtly into the warmth of John’s body pressed against his back as he answered with an empty explanation of his work. John would make some comment about the project or the hour or the kind of day they’d had and lean in too, pushing the inches closed between them, fitting them together perfectly. His hand would land on Rodney’s shoulder and his breath would wash against Rodney’s neck, making him shiver. Both of them would speak of inane things and pretend they were doing nothing out of the ordinary, like they could fool themselves that there was nothing going on here. There was no one needing; no one falling a little further in each night. 

Sometimes, if there was nothing to say, they would stand there, stealing each other’s warmth. Then John would ask what they were doing and Rodney would always tell him that he had no idea. Truth was they’d always known what they were doing, what they wanted to do.

When their words had finished saying nothing, Rodney would reach up and slide his fingers over the hand resting on his shoulder and squeeze it tightly. It was a signal to move, the command for reality to come crashing back around them and Rodney hated giving it, but it was necessary. John would always step back at that point, some times with a muttered ‘yeah’, some times silently but he always stepped back. He moved away so Rodney didn’t have to, that way they’d both had to do something that hurt  
.  
Rodney sighed loudly; this cell seemed even smaller all of a sudden. Last night they had finally given in, finally allowed themselves to become more than they had been and Rodney felt a bitter flash of fury aimed at Kolya, for taking him away from that so quickly. Rodney desperately wished he could touch John right now, just reach out and wrap himself around him. 

The splitting pain in his face and the ache in his body had nothing on the cold redundant thumping in his chest. It was quite a revelation to have in the middle of the night; bloodied and beaten, trying to sleep in a prison cell, held captive by a cold, sadistic bastard and realising that you needed someone so much you wouldn’t survive without them. 

‘Needed’ - Rodney snorted and shifted to lie on his back. He promised himself that when they were through this and he was back on Atlantis with John, then he would let himself use the other word. The word he really meant. 

~x~

John raced to the control room, Teyla and Ronon hard on his heels, Elizabeth had radioed to say the search team had found a direct lead to Rodney’s whereabouts and were on their way back. John skidded to a halt at the top of the stairs just as Lorne came through the ‘gate dragging a struggling man by his hair. The guy was getting tangled in his own long, dusty coat as he fought. Lorne grabbed the leather bag that had been slung over the man’s shoulders and thrust it at one of his Marines. He hauled the guy up straight and locked an arm behind his back. When the man finally noticed the sheer amount of firepower focused on him he gave up struggling and stood still. That was when they finally got a look at his face. John moved forward so fast that he took the first three steps in one stride, by the time he reached the bottom his momentum had carried him so fast that he nearly lost his footing. 

“I know you, Henmon, Hermon, or some damn thing – you’re one of Kolya’s ex-Genii lap dogs. Where the fuck is my scientist?” 

“My name is Haemon,” he sneered as he pushed the long strands of blond hair back from his face. 

“I really don’t give a damn what your name is, you bastard. Where’s McKay?” 

Haemon shrugged and looked away, his gaze levelled at nothing. Lorne reached out and smacked him in the side of the head, forcing him to look at Sheppard again. 

“How about you answer the Colonel’s question, we followed your little trail of clues and now it’s time for us to collect our prize.” 

Haemon turned to Lorne, a smug smile wrapped across his face.

“But you’re not at the end yet, you see, I don’t have Dr McKay - ”

“But I bet you know who does,” Ronon growled and stepped forward, “and I’d be willing to bet you’ll tell me in no time.” 

“Actually I do, and I will, but you don’t need to threaten me. In fact, despite that little performance back on the planet, I’m under orders to come here and deliver a message – a gift, if you like.”

Shit. John felt a rush of acidic heat rise from his stomach to his throat, a gift? What the fuck were they going to hand him? 

“What message? Orders from who?” Sheppard barked. 

“May I?” Haemon asked, indicating to the bag that one of the Marines was still clutching. 

John held his hand out for it and the Marine passed it over. Carefully, he pulled the leather cord loose and opened it. He flicked his eyes back up to Haemon’s face, trying to read whether or not the damn thing was booby-trapped. All he got was a look of amused condescension, so Sheppard reached into the bag and his hand met with fabric that felt worryingly familiar. His fingers closed around it and found it was bundled around something hard and he pulled it all out of the bag. 

Rodney’s jacket, battered and blood stained, was wrapped around a set of photos. John wasn’t consciously aware of his jaw clenching or his shoulders tightening as he unwound the jacket and looked at the first image. It was Rodney, of course, face down on a stone floor; John felt his stomach clench, fury like waves of fire rose inside him. The next shot was of Rodney on his knees, face bloodied, body caught in the act of swaying dangerously; another with a hand in Rodney’s hair and a fist just catching him across the cheekbone.

Sheppard’s hands started to shake, anger pounding through his chest, his head and throughout his body. 

“Who gave you your orders?” Sheppard snapped, but Haemon just nodded back at the photos. 

The next picture was Rodney being forced to look straight into the camera, his face was swollen and bleeding but his eyes were defiant – strong. John’s head spun, he knew that look was for him, knew that Rodney was showing him that he wasn’t broken. 

Somehow it just made him angrier. 

The last photo was the prestige, the big reveal. Sheppard flipped to it carelessly and didn’t flinch or react when he saw Kolya touching Rodney, that filthy fucking bastard’s hands were right there on John’s lover. Kolya had his ugly face pressed against Rodney’s and a manic smile twisting his features. Sheppard just looked at the picture and breathed in and out, in and out, face impassive, seemingly undisturbed. He could feel Haemon’s eyes on him, taste his delight at Sheppard’s non-reaction. With all the viciousness and precision of absolute fury, Sheppard punched him in the face. 

Haemon tumbled back against Lorne who just hauled him up and held him still. John flexed his fingers – shit, that had hurt – he took a step towards Haemon and was satisfied to see the man flinch. 

“Where is he?” 

“I’ll give you the address, they’re expecting you,” Haeman answered, wiping the corner of his mouth and wincing at the splatter of blood. 

“Well, they’re going to see me. Get the address from him, we’re going to gear up,” John said to Lorne. 

When he turned round Teyla took the pictures from his hand and flicked through them, John noted the way her back straightened and her head dipped with the anger that stretched the long line of her neck. When Teyla was truly furious her body seemed to intensify – her movements became even more precise and controlled, alert and poised. Ronon, in contrast, became impatient, his hand twitched by his holster and he would toss his head like a tribal warrior psyching himself up for the battle to come. 

John took the photos back and tucked them under the bloody jacket he was still holding. Sheppard, Ronon and Teyla moved towards the stairs, Elizabeth was waiting at the top for them. 

“Colonel Sheppard?” 

“We know who has him,” John answered, showing her the picture of Rodney and Kolya. Elizabeth’s fingers pressed against her lips quickly but it wasn’t fast enough to prevent the angry gasp that escaped. 

“I thought Kolya was dead,” her voice shook far more than she should have allowed it to. 

“So did we,” John said shortly, “apparently he’s not.”

“He will be soon,” Ronon growled. 

“We’re going to gear up, Hermon down there, is going to give the ‘gate address to Lorne and then we’re shipping out.” John knew there would be no argument on this one - none was needed. 

“I don’t need to point out that you’re playing right into his hands, do I?” Elizabeth asked. 

John shook his head, “if that’s where he’s holding Rodney, that’s where we go. We’ll figure out the rest as we come to it.” 

“Okay,” Elizabeth nodded. “You should take Beckett with you, I’ll alert him and ensure that he’s ready.” 

“No time,” John said quietly, “we’re gearing up and shipping out asap. It’ll be quicker if we go in, get Rodney out and bring him home. Just make sure Beckett’s ready for when we dial in.”

“No problem,” Elizabeth turned away, already talking into her radio. John nodded to  
Ronon and Teyla and they went to ready themselves.

John swung by his quarters first and pulled open the drawer of his desk, tossing the pictures of Rodney inside. He held onto the jacket just a second longer and, feeling ridiculously foolish, pressed his lips to the material and breathed in. His fingers twisted in the fabric and he clutched it so tight the material burned his skin, the dry blood made it stiff and John desperately fought the urge to heave up the hot ball of fury in his stomach. He swallowed it down, he didn’t have time for this, he needed to move. He shoved the jacket in after the photos, cramming it down and slamming the draw shut. 

He turned and left his quarters, heading for the armoury. 

~x~

Ow, yes, that hurt. Rodney carefully tested the tiniest movement in his jaw and found it pretty much unbearable. Then he lifted his fingers to run over the swelling around his eye, hissing with the sharp, sticky contact of warm fingers against broken skin. He was so cold, there was a draft in this room that seemed to bite into him since Kolya took his jacket away. He wasn’t stupid, he knew why they’d done that, he could just picture John’s face as he was presented with the blood stained material. He didn’t envy the messenger, nor did he care if John shot him. 

Rodney gingerly pushed himself up to sit against the wall, pulled his legs up and wrapped his arms around himself to try and keep some warmth in. If he kept still it didn’t hurt too much. 

The door rattled then banged and Kolya came in carrying a loop of rope – oh, that was not good. He unlocked the cell and stepped inside, watching Rodney with careless disregard.

“Well, it seems we have once again underestimated your Colonel Sheppard.” 

Rodney snorted and made a circular gesture that he hoped Kolya would interpret correctly - the definition of idiocy, making the same mistakes again and again. 

“He’s already on his way so I’m afraid our time has been cut short.” 

John was on his way? Rodney wasn’t sure if he was relieved or terrified by the prospect of John coming here. 

“I have to depart in order to put the next part of my plan in motion, I regret that we must say our goodbyes.” 

Rodney flinched but Kolya made no move to shoot him or stick a knife in him or any of the other things Rodney had refused to let himself think about. 

“Oh, no, my dear Dr. McKay, I’m not going to kill you.” 

Okay, now Kolya was just trying to get a rise out of him, Rodney ignored him. 

“As you so correctly pointed out before, I need you alive. I need Sheppard to come in here and rescue you – which he’ll manage without any problem, I assure you. Getting back to your city in one piece, however, could be slightly more problematic for him. Now, if you would,” Kolya indicated to the door, clearly expecting Rodney to get up and walk out. 

So not going to happen. 

“Get up Dr. McKay, I don’t have time for games.” 

Rodney glared at him but remained seated, his back pressed against the wall. 

“We can do this the hard way if you make it necessary,” Kolya stepped towards him and Rodney just looked at him. 

“Why exactly would I make anything easy for you when you’re setting a trap for my team leader?” 

“Very well,” Kolya all but sighed and stepped right up to Rodney and reached down, grabbing his arm and pulling him to his feet. Rodney just stood there, holding his breath against the pain, so Kolya put a hand on his back and pushed him forward, hard. Rodney stumbled and nearly went head first into the bars of his cell.

“Son of a -” Rodney cursed and righted himself, throwing a look of contempt right in Kolya’s ugly, smirking face. He was pushed out of the cell, out of the room and down a featureless grey corridor. Stone walls, stone floor, strip lights and no windows – same as his cell. He was pulled to a halt when they reached a huge sliding door, made of the Pegasus steel equivalent. Kolya leaned past him and slid the door back to reveal an empty room, like a deserted warehouse.

Rodney looked round and shook his head. “Do you subscribe to the ‘Handy Abandoned Warehouse’ magazine or something? I bet we’re underground too, aren’t we? It really is no wonder that Sheppard manages to stay one step ahead of you all the time – every plan you’ve ever come up with is straight out of the comic books he used to read as a child. All your dastardly deeds fall to the power of his ‘pow’, ‘zap’ and ‘kersplat’. You don’t stand a chance, Kolya, you really don’t.”

“We shall see, Dr McKay, we shall see.”

Rodney was pushed again and sent stumbling towards the solitary wooden chair in the middle of the room. 

“Sit,” Kolya barked. 

“I’m almost afraid to,” Rodney admitted, “I have an irrational phobia of clichés, you see.” 

“Sit.” 

“Fine,” Rodney rolled his eyes and sighed loudly to cover the wince of pain as Kolya shoved him down onto the seat and pulled his arms behind his back. The rope that Kolya had been carrying was unwound and fell apart into two pieces, one of which was tied securely round his feet. The other, Kolya tied tightly around his hands, taking his time. Rodney tried to twist to see what was taking so long but Kolya pushed his face forward again. 

“I wouldn’t, I’ve threaded blades into the ropes back here, if you twist the wrong way you could sever through your hand or your wrist and it would be a shame for Colonel Sheppard to come all this way just to find you bleeding out on the floor.”

“Great, thanks for the warning,” Rodney snapped. 

Kolya pulled a strip of white material from the pocket of his tunic and used it to blindfold Rodney, pulling it tight enough to make the pain in his face flare and throb. Rodney bit back the cry he wanted to let out and tried to call Kolya a bastard but the words came out more like a distorted sob. 

“We’ll be seeing each other again soon, Dr McKay, I assure you.” 

Rodney turned his head away, his heart was trying to break out of his chest and choke him with its harsh beating.

Kolya’s footsteps faded and the door rattled shut with an ominous bang. Rodney sat very still and waited for John to arrive - terrified of what would happen when he reached him. 

~x~

Sheppard held his P90 high against his shoulder and moved silently through the complex. Teyla was behind him, Ronon on their six; Lorne and his team – minus Dr Parish but plus a couple of extra marines, were the other side of the building coming in from the far side. 

The place was deserted, the life signs detector that Sheppard held in his hand, cradled against the P90, registered one life form on the lowest sub-level. It hadn’t moved since they entered the building nearly fifteen minutes ago, nothing had, the whole place seemed deserted. Damn it, Rodney wasn’t here. He couldn’t be, that life form was probably a captive wraith or some damn suicide bomber ready to take them all out. Sheppard was half convinced they should turn around and go home, but what if that was Rodney? What if that was him and they just deserted him and went home? So they kept going, methodically checking each floor thoroughly, working their way down to whoever waited for them below. 

“Too quiet,” Ronon mumbled, barely audibly. 

“I agree, where are Kolya and his men? Surely they would be here to gloat?” Teyla murmured back. 

“Something’s definitely hinky, but even if Rodney’s not here then our next clue to finding him is,” Sheppard whispered and checked the life signs detector again as he reached down to push open another metal door. The stairs on the other side would take them down to the next level. 

Sheppard tapped his radio. “Sheppard to Major Lorne, come in please?”

“Go ahead, sir.” 

“You found anything over there?” 

“Nothing, sir. All quiet, too quiet in fact, there’s not a damn thing around.” 

“Yeah, we just had that conversation over here.” John made brief eye contact with Teyla and Ronon before continuing. “Be advised we’re heading down a level, we have no idea what it’ll do to radio transmissions. No shielding as far as we can tell but stay alert, just in case. If you don’t hear from us within the hour, head back to the ‘gate and dial for back up.” 

“That’s all received, sir, Lorne out.” 

“Right,” Sheppard moved towards the stairs, “let’s go.” 

~x~

Rodney couldn’t hear a damn thing; there hadn’t been a sound since Kolya walked out. It was eerie and unnerving, he didn’t like it, he didn’t do well in absolute silence, it didn’t suit him – ask anyone who knew him, Rodney McKay and silence did not mix. 

He’d tried to pull his feet free but the ropes wouldn’t budge. He didn’t dare try and  
move his hands, he really didn’t think Kolya would care if John did burst in here only to find him slumped in this chair surrounded by a pool of his own blood. He was that much of a bastard. Kolya, not John - obviously – John was, well he was…John. He had stupid hair and a goofy grin, gave truly amazing head and was all kinds of stupidly heroic. John was coming to fetch him and take him home, he was coming to fetch Rodney only to get picked off by Kolya. Rodney wasn’t sure what the hell he’d do if Kolya got to John, he really wasn’t. There were thoughts, images, floating around in his mind, visions of himself walking up to Kolya and with a fury so terrible, putting a bullet in the man’s brain and not pausing to care. Could he do that if Kolya killed John? Could he stop himself from doing that if Kolya killed John? And why was the thought that he wouldn’t actually be able to prevent himself from killing Kolya far more terrifying than the man himself? 

His hands were going numb but he didn’t dare move them. 

“Okay, okay, there is no need to panic,” he told himself in hushed tones, full volume was too loud in the empty room. “Sheppard’s coming; Kolya told you Sheppard was coming, just like you knew he was. You are absolutely not going to be tied to this chair for the rest of your life. On the bright side, even that won’t be very long if you don’t get something to eat fairly soon. That’s my bright side? I should really stop trying to reassure myself, it’s too depressing. How long have I been here? Hours I would think, though it could just as easily be minutes or days, I really don’t know. No, logically it couldn’t be days – I really would be dead then.”

He sighed and longed to rub his face. 

“Think of it this way,” he told himself, eyes flickering from side to side beneath the blindfold, “at least I’m not stuck in the back of a jumper under thousands of feet of ocean. At least here I have plenty of oxygen. That’s right, I’ll die of starvation long before I could possibly suffocate down here. This,” he snapped, pausing to berate himself, “this unreserved negative outlook on life is why I was never a cheerleader in high school. Well, that and the fact that I wasn’t a perky little blonde girl – and I’d have looked terrible in yellow spandex. Also, cheerleading has got to be the most incredibly stupid, vapid and irritating waste of time ever and I probably would have been allergic to my pom-poms. What am I even talking about? Focus. Right…there’s absolutely nothing I can focus on, there’s nothing I can do except wait.”

“I’m not that great at waiting. Waiting and cheering, two things I’m very bad at, in fact.”

“Silence. There’s another thing I’m not good at, as I said a minute ago if I recall correctly. Now we have three – waiting, cheering and silence. Hmm, what else…waiting, cheering, silence and baking, I really hate baking. That’s four, we’re on a roll, apparently. Waiting, cheering, silence, baking and, umm, and, oh…Hey – heroics; I’ve never been any good at the sacrificing anything for the greater good or the charging into battle type things. That’s five - five things I’m terrible at - ”

Before he got any further the door banged and was shoved open, he turned his head towards the noise. 

“Rodney!” 

Oh god, blessed, familiar, welcome voice.

“John,” he croaked. “John!” Shouting now as footsteps got louder and stopped just as hands fell on his knees, heavy and warm and oh so welcome.

“Rodney?” John’s hand landed tenderly against his cheek slipping up to follow the line of the blindfold around the back of his head. 

“Get it – I wanna see – just pull the damn thing off,” Rodney tugged his head back and the blindfold slipped off into John’s grasp. Rodney blinked furiously and the first thing he saw was the blurry outline of a black tac vest and grey uniform pants. Oh god, he was pretty sure that embarrassingly desperate keening sound was coming from him. Thankfully, John seemed to understand and leaned forward and brushed a kiss into his hair before framing his face and touching a kiss to his lips as well.

“You okay?” Rodney asked, panting sharply. 

“Me? Yeah! Are you?”

“Yes, yes. You’re not dead or anything then?” 

“No, not dead – I’m standing right here. What - ?”

“Kolya. You know that by now, no doubt, but Kolya is – this is all a trap and I - ”

John kissed him, thoroughly, soundly, thought-melting, brain killing-ly. Rodney’s mind sighed with desire and just a touch of resignation, even as his ribs burned and his jaw ached. 

“The others?” he managed to croak when John pulled back. 

“Teyla and Ronon are at the end of the hall, watching the stairs; Lorne and his team are a whole floor above us.” 

John kissed him again, very gently and very quickly. 

“Injuries?” John’s hands ran over his shoulders, down his arms and round his chest. 

“Just my face and my chest – more my ribs, actually - and my hands are going numb.” 

“When did you last eat?” John asked, already moving round behind him and working on the ropes that bound his hands. 

“Umm, a while ago – hey, be careful, Kolya put blades in those - ”

“Ow, fuck!”

“ – ropes.” 

“Fucking bastard.”

There was a sound behind him, like an extravagant kiss being pulled apart and Rodney got a completely inappropriate image of John’s mouth wrapped around his own fingers. 

John came back to kneel in front of him and started working on the ropes at his feet. Rodney could see the thin line of bright red blood running along the back of John’s fingers and suddenly he felt very sick. His own hands were now free and he reached for John, fumbling, stupid, numb fingers scrabbling desperately at his jacket and pulling him close. 

“Hey, hey,” John soothed and quickly leaned into him, Rodney immediately wrapped his arms around him and shoved his nose against the soft hair behind John’s ear, breathing him in. 

“Kolya wants you,” he garbled into the soothing warmth he had found. “He didn’t do anything awful to me; I was nothing more than a way to get you here. We have to be careful, he told me you wouldn’t make it back to the ‘gate unharmed – he wants you and he wanted to make sure I saw it. We can’t let that happen.”

“We’ll be careful,” John promised, “and we’ll make it home.” 

Rodney shuddered and dragged in a heavy breath. “God, look at the state of me,” he gathered himself together as best he could and pulled back, “what am I, some fucking fairytale princess locked in a tower? Shit!” 

“You’re the first princess I’ve met that uses that kind of language.” 

Rodney rubbed a hand over his face, now he was able, and shook himself, rolling his shoulders back and meeting John’s grin with an empty glare.  
“Can we get out of here, please? If I’m a fairy princess I need to get to work on finding my Prince Charming.” 

“Hey!” John pouted, “you’re my princess, no one else’s.”

Rodney looked at him, he was pretty sure that John had meant that to be flippant but there was an underlying intensity that said far more. 

“Yeah, I am,” Rodney said softly, “but you ever call me Princess, even once, and I’ll push you off the East Pier when no one’s looking.”

“Can I call you Your Highness?” 

“Yes but only when you bring me coffee.” 

John forced out a small laugh and went to back to untangling Rodney’s feet. 

“What were you talking about when I came in? Muttering to yourself?” John asked, looking up at him from where he knelt on the floor. 

“I was, um, I was listing the things I’m bad at, actually – including cheer leading and pom-pom allergies so it’s probably best that you don’t ask.” 

“Cheer leading?” John was doing the eyebrow thing, for some reason it made Rodney smile, just a little. 

“Yes, and baking.” 

“I hate baking,” John said, vehemently.

“Mmm, me too, that’s probably why I’m so bad at it. I once nearly burned down an entire apartment block. I only meant to answer the phone and go straight back to it but I got distracted. Why am I even telling you that? I think I’m a little worked up to be honest, I tend to babble when I’m worked up,” he twirled his hands in a complicated little gesture. John caught them between his own and, still kneeling on the floor, brushed his lips to the back of Rodney’s fingers. 

“All done.” 

“Thank you,” Rodney stood up and shook the loose ropes from around his feet, John pulled them away completely and tossed them aside. 

Rodney held out a hand; John took it and pulled himself to his feet. Rodney looked down at the hand still lightly grasped in his and ran his thumb over the dark beads of blood, smudging them into the paler skin of John’s fingers. 

“You okay?” John asked cupping Rodney’s face and forcing him to look up. 

“I just want to get back – safely,” he answered and leaned in to kiss John, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him tightly against him, ignoring the burn of pain in his ribs.

John kissed him back, both hands wrapped in Rodney’s hair, palms skimming his neck. 

Rodney groaned. “We really need to get home.” 

“Come on,” John kept a hand on his lower back, steering him towards the door gently. “Teyla and Ronon will be wondering what’s taking so long.” 

“Okay, okay, but we go carefully, Colonel,” Rodney glared as best he could while feeling pathetically grateful that John had come for him and terrified of the moment that Kolya’s trap would be sprung. 

“Carefully, got it. Come on.” 

~x~

Rodney followed Sheppard to the door, looking around them constantly as he moved. He wished for a life signs detector then stopped Sheppard with a hand on the elbow so that he could reach round and liberate the one stuck in the front pocket of his vest. Sheppard offered him a half grin and at Rodney’s nod, kept moving. 

When they made it out into the corridor Ronon and Teyla were waiting for them, Teyla moved forward and very quickly touched her forehead to Rodney’s. 

“You are well?” 

“I’m fine, apart from the obvious kidnap and beating trauma.” 

Teyla gave him a grim nod but there was a slight smile in her eyes that he found oddly comforting. Ronon stepped forward and handed him his tac vest and his gun. 

“Weapons aren’t loaded anymore but I figured you’d want your stuff back. Found it down the hall.” 

“Thanks,” Rodney took his stuff but before he had time to shrug on his vest Ronon clasped his shoulder. 

“He say anything?” 

“Just that he, uh, wanted Sheppard, I was bait. Flattering, as you can imagine.”

“Nothing else?” 

“Lots of things but none of it relevant, believe me I’d tell you if it had been. The longer we stand around here chatting, the longer Kolya has to do whatever it is he wants to do. Can we please go?” 

Sheppard was looking at him, assessing him, but there was nothing to see so Rodney pulled on his vest, very carefully, and busied himself fastening it. When he was done Sheppard handed him his spare clip. 

“Load up,” he said and then they were moving again, Rodney loading his 9mil. as he followed Sheppard. Ronon’s hand grabbed him again and hauled him back. 

“Good to have you back,” he growled in his ear. 

“Thanks,” Rodney stammered and offered a half-hearted grin. He’d be happy when they were all back in Atlantis in one piece. 

~x~

When they made it out of the building, Rodney snorted, the outside looked exactly as he’d pictured it, grey, dull and warehouse-y. 

“What?” Sheppard asked, falling in line with him. 

“Nothing, just…this place it’s like every Genii stronghold we’ve seen, they all look the same. It’s just a little clichéd that’s all.” 

“You were taunting Kolya, weren’t you?” 

“I may have, a little,” Rodney grinned at the exasperated look on John’s face. “Well, he was - ” Rodney stopped there was a noise to their left, someone was coming round the edge of the building, more than one person and they were moving quickly. He’d barely fumbled his weapon from his belt when Sheppard grabbed his arm and pushed it back down.

“Just Lorne and his team,” he hissed just as they came into view. “Try not to shoot our own men, Rodney,” he drawled irritatingly. 

“Well, you could have told me they were coming, Colonel, I practically had a heart attack – that could easily have been Kolya’s men storming round there trying to kill you.”

Sheppard winced but muttered a pitiful ‘sorry’ and Rodney figured that was as good as he was going to get. 

“Doc,” Lorne said as his men met up with Sheppard’s team, “you doing okay?”

“Fine, fine, thank you.” Rodney raised his voice a little just to check they were all paying attention, “listen, just in case you weren’t aware the whole point of this debacle was to get Sheppard in a position where he’d be vulnerable to whatever attack Kolya has planned. So, in lieu of being targeted by a sadistic bastard with murder on his mind, Colonel Sheppard is going to have to march in the middle of this little parade.” 

“Excuse me, General McKay?” 

Sheppard’s sarcasm was not appreciated at this time, so Rodney ignored him completely. “Ronon, would you rather take point or cover our six?” Rodney asked, only feeling mildly stupid but gratified that none of the military personnel were laughing at him. 

“Teyla and I’ll take point,” Ronon said sharing a nod with Lorne, “the Major’s team will bring up the rear.” 

“Hey! This is my operation,” Sheppard interrupted again, with the same result as last time. 

“Good, are we ready to go then?” Rodney asked, Lorne, Ronon and Teyla nodded and stepped into position. 

“Rodney!” Sheppard barked. 

“Look, I’ve been kidnapped, beaten and deprived of sufficient food and light for days. I’m hungry, aching and absolutely terrified. I have an hour, at the absolute maximum, before I collapse in a heap and sink into blessed unconsciousness. Do you really want to stand here and add to that misery or can we please just get home?” 

Sheppard looked slightly stunned so Rodney dialled up his ‘tired and pathetic’ and added another quiet “please?” 

Sheppard caved, instantly and completely.

“Okay, Ronon - you and Teyla take point. Lorne, cover our six. Everybody move out.” 

“Thank you,” Rodney breathed as they stepped together. Sheppard put a hand on his shoulder and steered him in a straight line but said nothing further as they trekked back towards the ‘gate.

~x~

Twenty heart-stoppingly uneventful minutes later they were standing looking at the stargate. 

“There’s been no trap,” Rodney whispered, “nothing, they haven’t even leapt out and yelled ‘boo’ or tried to shoot us or blow us up. Nothing, just nothing, it’s making me nervous.” 

“Really? I couldn’t tell…” 

Sheppard’s words may have been glib but Rodney could hear the tightness in his voice and knew well that he was worried too. 

“What if they’ve rigged the ‘gate?” Rodney asked. 

“You tell me, are they capable of that right now? What’s our next move if they have?” 

“Thankfully, Kolya’s idea of a plan goes along the lines of yelling ‘look over there’ and grabbing toys from a toddler,” Rodney answered snidely. 

“Let’s not mock him too much, Rodney, his distractions are painfully vomit-inducing and his results are more or less effective.”

“Don’t remind me. Vomit inducing?” Rodney shared an uneasy look with Sheppard, “you vomited too?” 

“Focus, buddy, we’re almost home.” 

“Right. We need to check out the Stargate and the DHD, visual check first then give me a couple of minutes to take the DHD apart and providing we don’t find anything, we’re good to go. I hope.” 

Lorne’s team did the visual sweep, quite literally running around the ‘gate checking that it didn’t have anything attached. When that proved clear Rodney moved in and kneeled next to the DHD, pulling the panel off and sticking his head inside. His hands were shaking from low blood sugar, his chest felt like it was on fire and flickered with pain every time he took a breath. Sighing, Rodney rolled slightly and reached to check the first crystal. 

“Should you be doing that? What if there is something in there, it could blow up in your face?” 

Rodney just knew that Sheppard was crouched next to the DHD, hovering. “I have an idea, Colonel, why don’t I get on with what I’ve started here while you just keep your eyes open and not get killed? Okay?” 

“McKay,” Sheppard’s hand reached under the DHD console and grabbed his arm, squeezing it gently. “Relax, do what you’ve got to do, we’re going to get home. We got this far, didn’t we?” 

“Oh god, you had to go and jinx it” Rodney stuck his head back into the crystal bank. “Don’t die,” he ordered as shuffled closer to get a better look, ignoring Sheppard as he patted his leg and stood back up.

~x~

“I can’t find anything,” Rodney complained as he stuck his head out a few minutes later. 

“That’s good, right?” Ronon asked, “ we can dial the ‘gate and get out of here?” 

“I don’t know, I mean why go to all that trouble to kidnap me and send pretty pictures to lure you here if they’re just going to let us leave?” 

Ronon shrugged oh so helpfully and Rodney rolled his eyes at him. Very carefully he pulled himself to his feet, wincing at the burning pain around his ribs as he did so.

“You okay?” Sheppard asked. 

“I’m concerned about how eager I am to see Carson, I never thought I’d look forward to that ‘just lie back and relax’ moment.” 

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Sheppard consoled. “Okay people, let’s dial the ‘gate to a safe site.” He nodded at one of Lorne’s men and he stepped forward and started dialling one of the previously agreed ‘safe addresses’. 

“Someone else should go through first,” Rodney said suddenly. He knew Sheppard wasn’t going to like it but since the Colonel was the target he shouldn’t walk through until they knew it was safe for him. 

“Why?” Sheppard asked, quietly and patiently, and that in itself terrified Rodney. 

“Because you’re the reason Kolya set all this up, what if it’s something we’ve missed and it’s not safe?” 

“You want me to send one of the people I’m responsible for through the ‘gate first so that if there is a problem they cop it and not me, is that it?” 

“Well - ” Rodney stammered because yes, that was kind of the idea. 

“How about you go first, Rodney?” Sheppard’s sneer made it perfectly clear what he was doing but somehow it didn’t actually sound like such a bad idea to Rodney. He stepped forward as the event horizon whooshed into existence.

“Give me your radio,” he said to Falmer, the guy who’d dialled the ‘gate. He snapped his fingers impatiently at the marine and waited for him to hand it over. 

“What are you doing?” Sheppard asked, rolling his eyes and clearly not entertaining the idea that Rodney was about to step through there first. 

Rodney shoved the ear piece into place and walked across the small platform towards the event horizon. 

“If I use the word ’home’ when I radio through do not step through that ‘gate, okay?”  
His last glance revealed John’s smirk hastily changing to something that could have been surprise, could have been fury - Rodney wasn’t sure and Teyla saying “Colonel, perhaps one of us should - ”

Rodney stepped out planet side into a place he vaguely recognised as a world they sometimes traded with. Before he had time to look any further or register anything more there was a noise behind him and Sheppard was stalking towards him. Huh, fury then. Well, that Rodney could relate to. 

“Hey, I didn’t even radio - ”

“What the fuck was that, McKay?” 

“Just following your suggestion, Colonel,” Rodney shouted back. 

“You pull anything like that again and it’s not going to be Kolya you have to worry about kicking your ass!” 

Teyla and Ronon came through just as Rodney was shouting, “well, it’s not my ass I’m worrying about right now, you idiot!” 

Lorne’s team appeared at the same time Sheppard yelled “I worry about your ass, you dick, and if you ever put it on the line like that again, I’m going to - ”

“Going to what?” Rodney taunted, rather unwisely he understood, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. 

“Argh! We are going to talk about this at great length when we get home Rodney, make no mistake about that.” 

“Fine. I’ll look forward to it.” 

Sheppard glared at him then pointedly turned away. 

“Check the surrounding area,” he barked at the others, “we’ll dial home from here if it’s clear.” 

Rodney headed for the DHD as they all scurried off to do as they were told. A few minutes later Sheppard came and stood next to him. 

“Did…er, did we just have our first domestic in front of a bunch of marines?” he asked quietly, the softness in his voice was the closest Rodney would hear to an apology and suddenly he felt bad for possibly scaring John. 

He put a hand over his bruised face and huffed out a gentle laugh. “You could say that, I guess - though I’m pretty sure that wasn’t our first domestic, not by a long stretch. Sorry.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right and - me too, just - just don’t do that to me, okay. Not after we just got you back.” 

“Sorry,” Rodney said again and gratefully accepted the hand on his shoulder with a weary smile. 

“You okay?” John asked. 

“Hurting. I’m tired and I hurt all over,” he admitted quietly. 

“We’ll be home soon.” 

“I know.” 

~x~

As Rodney stepped through into the Gate Room on Atlantis his head reeled and he had to close his eyes. He was home. He looked over at John who was watching him, wearing one of those soft, indulgent grins that often made him look a bit simple. Rodney loved that grin. He laughed, it felt so good to be home. 

It felt even better to have John walk up to him, sling an arm around his shoulder and gently pull him in close against him. 

“Come on, let’s get you to the infirmary, I think you’re delusional.” 

“What? I am not, you -”

“Rodney?” Elizabeth was jogging down the steps, a beaming smile stretched over her face. 

“Ah, Elizabeth.” 

“Good to see you. How do you feel?” She asked walking with them. 

“Bruised, mostly. Sore, tired, hungry.”

“Rodney, we’ll have to debrief as soon as you‘re ready, we need to know what Kolya wanted, how he’s even still alive.” 

“He needs to see Beckett, then we’ll debrief.” John was moving them very intently in the direction of the infirmary. 

“Yes, thank you, Colonel Sheppard,” Elizabeth gave him a small glare but seemed willing to go easy on him. She followed the team to the infirmary obviously intending to wait with them as Rodney was checked over. 

~x~

John walked Rodney right into the infirmary and hovered as Beckett ushered him onto a bed. John helped him sit and removed Rodney’s tac vest for him.

“Check him for a head injury, would you Carson?” Rodney snapped as Sheppard began unfolding a blanket. 

“I was just trying to be helpful,” Sheppard tossed the blanket onto the bed and spread his arms, “forgive me for bothering.” 

“Aye, well-”

“You’re doing it again,” Rodney accused, cutting off whatever Carson had been about to say. 

“Doing what?” Sheppard asked, exasperated. 

“Being an ass!” Rodney all but shouted. 

“Oh, really?” Sheppard taunted. 

“Yes, really.” 

“You started this, I was trying to help!” 

“Oh that‘s mature, you -” Rodney started to shout, but then hissed at the flare of pain in his chest. 

“Right, shut up the pair of you,” Carson intervened to stop things from getting any worse. “I don’t know what’s got into either of you but you can just bloody stop it. Colonel Sheppard, I need to examine Rodney and you should go and get checked out yourself.” 

John ran his hand through his hair and for a moment looked as if he might leave. Instead he stepped closer to the bed and put his hand on Rodney’s shoulder. “Rodney?”

Rodney couldn’t breathe, his chest was on fire and he couldn’t catch his breath. It figured that he’d add aggravation to injury by shouting at the one man who might just mean the world to him. Jesus, he could not breathe.

“Rodney?” John was leaning down so they were face to face. 

“I’m okay, just need to catch my breath.” 

John immediately shifted, sat next to him on the bed and began to rub his back soothingly as Carson fixed a stethoscope in his ear and shoved the cold end against Rodney’s chest. 

“Just breathe gently, lad. Easy now,” Carson encouraged as he moved across Rodney’s chest. 

“Relax, buddy, the Doc’s gonna fix you up. You’re gonna be fine, just relax.”  
John’s hand was warm against Rodney’s back and his warmth was welcome, cushioned against his side. 

“John,” Rodney breathed. 

Carson’s eyes flew up and flicked backwards and forwards between the two of them - it could have been comical, instead it was the longest few seconds of Rodney’s life as he realised that he’d probably just outed them in a single struggled breath. 

To John’s credit he didn’t move away, in fact he leaned in closer and held a steady gaze as he waited for Carson’s reaction. His eyes moved once more between the two of them then his eyebrows shot up and his face exploded with surprise and dread. 

“Oh, bloody hell! You idiots, do you not realise the danger you’reputting yourselves in?” 

Umm, Rodney was pretty sure John just growled. 

“We happen to think it’s worth it, Doc.” 

“Get of your high horse, you ninny, I’m not judging you. I’m concerned for both of you - and for myself. Do you have any idea how unbearable you’re going to be if one of you gets injured?” 

“Yes, can’t imagine what that feels like,” Rodney snapped, wincing and bracing himself with his arm carefully curled around his chest. 

Carson rolled his eyes at him. 

“Hey, injured man right here,” Rodney snapped. 

John rubbed his back again and Rodney let his forehead fall softly against John’s temple and closed his eyes. Well, there was little harm now Carson knew anyway. 

“Doc, if you so much as breathe an ‘awww’ I will shoot you,” John’s tone was warm despite the threat and Rodney guessed the look on Carson’s face was priceless but he wasn’t going to open his eyes to find out. He was going to stay right here. Forever. Or at least until Carson made him move. 

“Yes, well. It’s just as well you’ve got each other - you’d ruin another couple. I still have to examine Rodney, though, so…”

“He can stay, Carson,” Rodney still hadn’t moved so when John turned his head very slightly it wasn’t hard to kiss him gently. 

“Oh my god, you two are going to be the death of me. That’s just reckless and irresponsible, people walk in here all the time - people who aren’t restricted by medical law. What on earth am I going to do with the pair of you?” 

“We’re not on Earth, Doc,” John smiled stupidly as he turned to face Carson, his forehead still touching Rodney’s.

“Right. Colonel Sheppard, go and get checked out by one of the nurses, you know the routine. Rodney, lie back, let’s take a look at you. Now, gentlemen. Oh, for - you can come back when you’ve been cleared. Go and find a nurse, will you?” 

John stood up and Rodney was warmed to see the reluctance in his every move. 

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” John said.

“I’m fine,” Rodney said, unsure why his need to reassure John suddenly seemed far more important than any need to bitch about his injuries. 

John nodded, rubbed his hand through his hair with barely concealed agitation and walked away. 

“Rodney-” 

“Don’t start, Carson, please. This is the best thing that ever happened to me, please don’t try and ruin it.” 

“I wouldn’t dream of it, lad. All I was going to say was that you need to make sure you take care of each other.” 

“Oh, well, thank you. And yes, yes, we will.”

~x~

By the time John returned, showered and scrubbed and cleared for duty, Rodney had been bathed, bandaged and injected with, dear god, things that had made Carson’s eyes gleam. 

John had pulled a seat up next to the bed and sat there, quiet and almost sullen as Elizabeth had dropped by. Then Zelenka had stuck his head in to say hello, Teyla came by, Ronon too. And Miko and Price stopped by on their way from the labs because they needed his help… 

“Okay, team leader here, calling a halt to all of this. Doctor McKay is under orders to rest - go away.” Sheppard pushed two babbling scientists away from the bed and threw the glowing Ancient bouncy ball after them. 

“And people say I’m rude,” Rodney watched, amused as Miko chased the absolutely-not-just-a-bouncy-ball across the infirmary. 

“They were starting to irritate me,” Sheppard explained. 

“I can see how that would happen, I thought you were going to shove that device up Price’s nose at one point.” 

“It was a bouncy ball, that’s all - and I wouldn’t have been that kind.” 

Rodney smiled and closed his eyes, sleep was inevitable at this point, the past few days were taking their toll. Yet, there was something that wouldn’t let him rest - the nagging voice in the back of his mind that said their escape home had been far too easy. 

“Sleep, you’re exhausted,” John said quietly. 

“Too easy,” Rodney murmured, “it was all too easy.” 

“Yeah, that’s been bothering me too, but we’ll deal with whatever comes when, and if, it happens. For now, you need to sleep.” 

“Go away then.” 

“Charming!” 

“I can’t sleep while you’re sitting there, if I know you’re there I want to stay awake and…umm, you know…stay awake.”

John laughed at him gently. “God help me, I know exactly what you mean. Okay, I‘ll go.” 

Rodney reached out and took John’s hand squeezing it gently like he had done so many times. 

“We can do much better than that now,” John whispered and, looking around to check the coast was clear, leaned in to kiss Rodney. 

“Goodnight.” John looked like he did all those times in the lab when he didn’t want to walk away but knew he must. 

“Goodnight,” Rodney replied and closed his eyes. Soft, dry lips lightly brushed over his and another ‘goodnight’ was whispered right against his mouth. 

Moments later Rodney was asleep and John was sitting back in the chair next to his bed.

~x~

The next couple of days were painful for Rodney, frustrating for John and stressful for everybody. Rodney was kept in another night for observation before Carson got truly sick of him and radioed John, begging him to take Rodney away. 

John had agreed readily and cancelled all his meetings and training sessions for the next few days. 

“Why do I have to sit in this, Carson?” Rodney complained, looking down at the wheelchair in disgust. “He cracked my ribs not my legs, I’m perfectly capable of walking.” 

“And whining,” John muttered just as Carson rolled his eyes and said, “so that when Colonel Sheppard pushes you off the East pier we can say he sneezed and lost control of the chair.” 

“You’re both hilarious,” Rodney huffed and sat back in the wheelchair with a scowl. 

“Where did it even come from?” 

“I made it from the parts you knocked off the puddle jumper during your last landing,” John said glibly. 

“It came on the last Daedalus run, where do you think?” Carson motioned for John to carry on and push Rodney right out of his infirmary. 

“Thanks, Doc,” John grinned hugely, “come on, Rodney, time to blow this joint.” 

“Carson. Carson! You can’t leave me in the hands of this maniac - Colonel, wheelchairs are not flight-worthy so don’t even think it - Carson!”

“Oh, come on Rodney,” John laughed, “you’re not fooling any one, there’re no hands you’d rather be in.” 

Carson actually blushed and scuttled away, making John laugh. 

“Guess that’s our cue to leave. Come on, back to your quarters.”

~x~

“I can manage,” Rodney snapped as John’s hand came to rest at his elbow and help him onto the bed. 

John just raised his eyebrows and waited for Rodney to lie down. 

Once he was settled John crawled onto the bed, propped on all fours he hovered above him and looked down with unsettling intensity. The bruises on Rodney’s face were yellowing now, fading slowly. John leaned down and brushed his lips across a particularly nasty bruise that had lingered over Rodney’s eye. A trail of kisses led him to Rodney’s mouth and into a deeper, slower kiss. He felt Rodney’s hands slide up his arms and wondered if Rodney could feel him trembling as he held himself up. 

John sat back with his knees either side of Rodney’s thighs. His eyes never left Rodney’s as his hands reached out and pulled the loose knot of his dressing gown. The belt fell away and John pushed the gown open. He bent down and skimmed his cheek along the skin-warmed cotton of Rodney’s pyjama shirt, dipping his tongue beneath the fabric to taste his skin. 

“John?” Rodney huffed quietly, “I need - ”

Rodney’s hand was on his face guiding him up so that they could kiss, messy and desperate and deep. John loved it. He grinned into the kiss, pushing it further and claiming Rodney’s mouth completely. 

“Oh god,” Rodney whispered when they broke apart. “Do that again.” 

John did. This time his hand strayed down, down to the waistband of Rodney’s scrubs, his fingers just slipping under the cotton to tease. 

Rodney moaned deliciously and John couldn’t tell whether it was supposed to be a sentence but it had ended with his name and that’s all that mattered. 

“Rodney,” John whispered right in his ear, knowing how rough and desperate his voice sounded and knowing that would only turn Rodney on more. “Oh man, Rodney.” 

John pulled back and kissed his way down Rodney’s neck, quickly and gently removing his shirt so that he could kiss his bruised chest and ribs. When his tongue reached the waistband he felt a sudden flush of heat from the very top of his head down to his toes, his stomach tightened and he had to rest his head down for a moment. 

Rodney’s hands were in his hair, petting, stroking his head. 

“You okay?” 

“Yeah, hot. I’m really hot.” 

“That’s because you’re still dressed, take your clothes off.” 

John’s smile curled around the kisses he pressed to Rodney’s stomach before he sat back and pulled his shirt off over his head. 

He looked down to see Rodney swallow and his eyes travel down John’s chest. 

“And your pants,” he ordered and John smiled at the way his voice cracked. John stood up with a put-upon sigh and removed the rest of his clothes. He looked down at Rodney stretched out on the bed and raised a discerning eyebrow. 

“And now it seems you’re rather over dressed, Rodney. We’ll have to fix that,” he lowered himself back down and began to peel away remainder of Rodney’s scrubs. 

“What? Are you trying to kill me? Death by frustration? Just get them off already!” 

John sighed another long-suffering sigh and tossed the pants on the floor.

“Oh I’m so sorry if that was so much trouble for you,” Rodney rolled his eyes. 

“No trouble,” John smiled, “I’d be happy to do it any time.” 

Rodney laughed with one of those genuine, honest to happiness smiles and John didn’t like to think about just how close his chest came to exploding at that moment. God, he loved those smiles. 

He leaned up and kissed Rodney thoroughly. 

Rodney was thrumming beneath him and John couldn’t resist the temptation to slide down and taste his cock. He slid his tongue up the length and took the head into his mouth. Rodney moaned loudly and impatiently as John slowly worked it into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the thickening flesh and enjoying the way Rodney was coming undone beneath him. He slid his lips back up with a gentle suction, making Rodney pant his name. Then he swallowed him whole and sucked greedily as the short breaths became shouts. 

Rodney’s hands were tangled in his hair again, pulling and pushing at the same time, his movements as unintelligible as his moans. John swallowed him right down again and hummed low in his throat. Rodney’s staccato breathing was punctuated by desperate cries and John knew he was about to come. 

Hands tightened painfully in his hair and John swallowed and swallowed as Rodney shattered beneath his mouth. 

“John?” Rodney reached for him and John went willingly, kissing him deeply. 

“You taste like - oh, that is so hot,” Rodney moaned before pulling John up right next to him and turning them face to face on their sides. 

“Mind your ribs,” John warned between kisses. Rodney just made a complicated little hand movement and kissed him again, running a hand down his side and over his ass. 

It was John’s turn to moan and push back against the hand before it slipped away, rubbing between his legs and up to his straining cock. 

Rodney’s hand moved skilfully over and around him, working him with an unbearably blissful rhythm. John’s groans were lost in Rodney’s mouth and his body lost to his touch. John could no longer focus on the kiss and just opened his mouth and pressed it to Rodney’s to steal the breath right from him, unsure that he would ever be able to breathe any other way after this. Rodney’s fingers were undoing him, pulling him apart and he couldn’t do anything but move with it, loving it completely. 

He bucked, pushing his cock further into Rodney’s hand and felt the rhythm of his touch alter and speed up. 

“Oh god, I’m gonna - Rodney!” John came with a shout, coating Rodney’s hand and wrist. 

For a long moment they lay there tangled together, kissing sloppily with the little energy they had left. 

“You came all over the bed,” Rodney said after a while, not looking at all disturbed by the situation. 

“You made me,” John said reasonably. 

Rodney spluttered. 

“It’s your fault,” John insisted, “you should clean it up.” 

“It’s your mess,” Rodney replied. 

“Yes, but you made it. At least I made an effort to keep yours contained.” 

“I have injured ribs,” Rodney whined playfully. 

John tried to find it funny and gave a close approximation to a grin but for some reason he didn’t find it all that amusing. 

“Sorry,” Rodney murmured, noticing the change in mood. 

“No, it’s not your fault. I just…” John waved at the fading bruises on Rodney’s chest and face. “I don’t like it, that’s all,” his voice was too strong. Rodney brushed a hand over John’s chest and up his neck to cup his face. 

“There was nothing you could have done to stop it.” 

“I could have shot Kolya in the head,” John growled. 

“Stop it,” Rodney snapped, “you are not beating yourself up over this, we’ll deal with Kolya and whatever he has planned after we’ve slept.”

John nodded. 

“I mean it,” Rodney said sternly, “we’re not wasting any more of the time we have together on that bastard. Understood?”

“Yes, Rodney,” John drawled and kissed Rodney to try and lighten the mood, it was the least he could do considering he’s been the one to kill it. 

“Good,” Rodney kissed him back and looked at John longingly, achingly, like he was something Rodney could never have. 

“What?” John asked, his palm coming to rest on Rodney’s cheek. 

“There’s just no way we can actually sleep together without it hurting.” 

“Hey, you’ll be healed soon and then we can do all the snuggling you like,” John smiled. 

“I said nothing about snuggling.” 

“Yes, but I know that’s what you meant.” 

“Well, maybe,” Rodney said, easing carefully back onto his back, “come here.” He pulled John’s hand across his body and tangled their fingers together, John lay on his side and pressed his forehead to the top of Rodney’s arm. 

“Sleep now?” he muttered drowsily.

“Yes, sleep now,” Rodney whispered. 

John pressed his lips to Rodney’s shoulder and closed his eyes. 

~x~

John woke a couple of hours later and untangled himself as gently as he could. Rodney still stirred and blinked, murmuring a soft protest. 

“I’ve got to go, buddy, I need to get back to my quarters.” 

“Stay?” 

“I can’t, you know I can’t,” John said regretfully. 

“’Kay.” 

John grabbed a glass of water from the bathroom and put it on the nightstand next to the bottle of pain pills he’d rescued from his jacket pocket. Then he sat on the bed next to Rodney while he put his boots on and dropped a kiss to Rodney’s forehead.  
“I’ll swing by in the morning and we’ll go for breakfast, okay?” 

“Mmmhmm,” Rodney said, reaching out to brush his fingers against John’s thigh.

John smiled and leaned down to press another kiss to sleep-warmed skin.  
“Go back to sleep, I’ll see you in a few hours.”

John wandered back through the darkened halls, night time on Atlantis was so quiet, his eyes barely open as he walked the familiar route to his quarters. His door slid open for him as eagerly as it always did and John remained awake just long enough to strip back down to his boxers before his head hit the pillow and he was out like a light. 

~x~

“John?” Rodney’s panicked voice woke him just before daybreak. “John! Shit, I need help!” 

“Rodney?” John fumbled for the radio and clicked it. “Are you in your quarters?” 

“No! No! Fuck! I need help here! John, please?” 

John was up and pulling on his tee shirt, his heart hammering in his chest, blood pounding through his veins. 

“Where are you, buddy? What’s wrong?” 

“I’m out on the ledge above the balcony by my lab and - oh god - it hurts, John. It hurts and I – I’m going to fall!” 

“How did you get out there? What happened?” John was already running, heading for the nearest transporter. 

“Shit! John, I’m going to fall! John!” 

“Rodney? Rodney!”

John threw himself into the transporter and slammed his hand onto the location panel. How the fuck had Rodney gone from sleeping peacefully when he left him to clinging onto a ledge for dear life? The transporter spat him out just down the hall from Rodney’s lab and he was already running. Doors sprang open for him, he passed a couple of marines doing a patrol of the city and shouted at them to get Beckett and Dr Weir over here immediately, they had an emergency. 

John skidded out onto the balcony, looking around frantically. 

“John,” Rodney’s panicked voice came from above him and he looked up to see him lying on a small ledge, his fingers gripping it tightly. He was so high up but John was pretty sure that was a gash on his head and blood running down his face. 

“Rodney? Hang on, we’re gonna get you down, buddy, I promise. How did you get up there?” 

“I don’t - I have no idea! I’m dizzy, I’m going to fall, John, please -” 

“You’re not going to fall, just hang tight, I’m coming to get you. Is there a door behind you, Rodney? How do I reach you?” 

“There - there’s nothing - no door or hatch or panel - I have no idea how I got here. Please, I need to get down,” Rodney begged and started to shift, his movements taking him perilously close to the edge. 

“Don’t move, Rodney. Stay where you are,” John shouted up, frantically trying to think of how to get up to that ledge, it was over a storey up from where he was stood. “I’m going to come fetch you but I need you to stay still, okay?”  
John’s radio sounded in his ear. 

“John? What‘s going on?” Elizabeth’s voice seemed to ring right through his skull. 

“We’re out on the balcony to Rodney’s lab, I think he’s been attacked, I’m going to need Beckett. He’s stuck on one of the ledges about a floor up and I have no idea how he got there.” 

“What?” 

“Elizabeth, just get Carson over here and get me some help.” 

“John. I really, really need to get down, right now!” Rodney’s voice was becoming quieter and that worried John more than the panicked shouting. 

“You sure there’s no door behind you?” 

“I’m certain, damn it. I’m not stupid, Colonel, if there was I’d have used it.” 

John supposed that was a good point. 

“Okay, okay, buddy, I’m coming up,” John said looking at the climb ahead of him, 

God, this was not going to be easy.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” 

“No problem, just stay good and still and I’ll be right there,” he thought about waiting for backup or going to fetch some gear to secure him during the climb but the way Rodney was alternating between wriggling too much and drifting too close to unconsciousness, he didn’t dare risk any more time. 

John moved to the edge of the balcony and climbed the barrier, from there he could stretch up and grab onto a similar ledge to the one Rodney was on. He made it without much effort and edged along, looking up at Rodney. There were some small metal rods sticking out of the wall just above him, if he could get his feet into the groves of the Ancient architecture and use those as hand holds, he’d be another step closer.  
He plastered himself as close as possible to the wall and reached up, he tugged and the rod didn’t give immediately so he took that as a good sign and inched his way up.

John was aware of the sweat dripping down his face and paused momentarily as his head lurched sickeningly and his vision blurred. God, he must be half asleep still. 

Rodney groaned above him and John paused and looked up. 

“Rodney? Rodney! Damn it!” 

No answer, John recklessly shoved his body higher so that his hand holds became his foot holds and he clung to the wall by sheer force of will. He was just barely aware of the lab doors sliding open below him and people running out onto the balcony.

“Oh my God! Colonel! What the hell are you doing?” Elizabeth’s voice shouted up to him. 

“Getting him down, Elizabeth!” John shouted back. 

“Getting who down, John?” 

“Jesus, he’s right there!” John looked over, he wasn’t far now but Rodney wasn’t moving and John couldn’t see his face. He pushed himself over, clinging to the grooves in the wall and determined to reach Rodney. There were gasps and cries below him and John turned his face away from the wind to look down at them. He was very high up, not that it mattered at this point; he had to get to Rodney. 

“Colonel, please stop,” Elizabeth called up, her voice more panicked than John had ever heard. 

“John, please?” Teyla had appeared as well. 

“I’m almost there, have Carson standing by,” he called back down, turning his attention back to Rodney. 

“Rodney? Rodney, can you hear me?” he called but there was no response, no movement at all. John edged closer, painfully slowly but as fast he could move. The wind whipped around him again and he gritted his teeth, moving despite it. 

“John?” Rodney’s voice. Thank god, Rodney’s voice. “John! Fucking hell, what are you doing?”

That wasn’t right, Rodney’s voice was coming from below. That couldn’t be right, Rodney was just a little way away from him now, curled up, injured, lying on a ledge that would be the death of him with one false move. 

Rodney couldn’t be down there. 

John looked down to see his lover standing with the people below, looking pale and terrified. 

“John? John, please come down.” 

“Rodney?” John was now thoroughly confused. He could see Rodney, he could see him right there, still, lifeless, blood pooling around his head from the gash that was still bleeding. 

“John,” the Rodney on the floor was shouting at him again. 

John looked down, “I don’t…I can’t - how? Fuck!” His head swam and he felt a wave of nausea roll though him. He looked between the two Rodneys. 

“Come down, John.”

John shook his head, that wasn’t Rodney; that was his mind playing tricks on him, betraying him into thinking that he should climb down. If he did that he risked losing Rodney. However, there was no reason or explanation for how Rodney got out onto that ledge, injured and practically incoherent. What if this wasn’t real, what if Rodney really was standing below him? What the fuck was going on here? 

“John? Please.” The groan came from the nearby ledge; Rodney’s hand twitched and tried to reach for him. Sheppard clenched his teeth and looked down. Fuck it, he just couldn’t risk that the one below was real and that he would be leaving his lover to die. 

He inched closer to the ledge, when he was close enough he let go of the wall and swung his body towards Rodney, grabbing on frantically when he began to slip. 

“Oh god, don’t fall, don’t fall, please don’t fall,” that was the Rodney below and he sounded so desperate, John had never been so torn in his life. 

Oh god, but what if this was his Rodney, the one reaching out to him with blood-smeared fingers? He had to get up there. With a shout John heaved himself up onto the ledge, pulling his body weight over the edge to collapse on the flat surface. 

Rodney was gone. 

The ledge was empty, for a second his heart froze at the thought that Rodney had gone over at the same moment John had pulled himself up but then a wave of intense heat hit him, the same way it had the night before, like someone pouring hot water over his head so it trickled down his entire body.

What the fuck was going on? There was no way he could have imagined that whole thing – he’d seen Rodney, he’d heard him, damn it. 

The only Rodney he could see now was far below him, looking pale and determined as he yelled at him to stay the fuck where he was while they figured out how to get him down without John breaking his neck. 

John felt dizzy, the heat inside of him was overwhelming and he couldn’t bear it. 

“Rodney?” He called down and the crowd seemed to hush suddenly. 

“Stay where you are, John, we’re going to bring a puddle jumper round to get you down.” 

“You’re - down there?” 

“Yes, I’m down here, you will be too, very soon, just stay still.” 

John was so confused, how had all this happened? His vision blurred then cleared slowly, like the focusing of a camera.

What the hell? John could see Kolya down there, moving between them all. John could fucking see him, why weren’t they stopping him? He was walking right towards Rodney. 

“McKay! Kolya! He’s right -” 

John saw Rodney spin, looking around frantically but he looked right past Kolya and back up to John, his concern visible even from so far up. 

“He’s not here, Colonel.” 

God, Kolya was walking right towards them, why couldn’t they see him? John tried to move, to get down there and stop the bastard. He could hear people shouting at him, Rodney’s voice ringing above all the others. 

Then suddenly there was a puddle jumper rising up from the underside of the balcony, it’s back hatch open to reveal a terrified looking Carson clinging onto the hatchway. John spared a moment to be grateful that the good doctor wasn’t piloting the damn thing before he was tugged from the ledge and into unconsciousness. 

~x~

“Let me go, for fuck sake!” John screamed and struggled as hard as possible against the restraints holding him in place. “Let. Me. Go.” 

He lifted his head and feverishly glared at the White Coat moving around next to his bed. The man ignored him and continued checking monitors and taking readings. The machines pulsed in a steady rhythm, taunting him as he struggled frantically. John could feel the sweat rolling down his neck and soaking through his shirt, his wrists were burning with the strain of endless struggling and, damn it, he was tired of being ignored. 

The room was nothing but walls, dull grey walls and bare lights running in a harsh strip along the ceiling. No windows, one door and all one damn colour. Grey, grey on the floor, grey above him and around him and it was all he knew. It was driving him steadily insane. That and the long line of White Coats – faceless men that came in, took readings and disappeared, rarely a word, never an explanation. 

All John knew was that he was tied down, restrained most effectively but had to find McKay. The last time he’d seen him he was being dragged away by the faceless people that had come from nowhere. The same people that had him tied to a fucking table for no fucking reason. 

“What are you going to do? Tie me to the ground and listen to me scream?” Tie me to the ground? That didn’t make sense, even in his own head that didn’t make any sense. He was a pilot; being tied to the ground forever was his worst nightmare. “Let me the fuck go and give me back my scientist!” 

It had been hours, John was sure of it, hours of futile shouting and wrestling with the leather straps that wouldn’t give an inch. John knew these bastards had given him something, drugged him; his head kept leaping from thought to thought and nothing made any sense. 

John screamed wordlessly, pulled at his wrists and twisted his body with a frustrated ferocity that got him precisely nowhere. 

“Fuck! McKay!” John screamed as something blisteringly hot was shoved into his arm, burning through his skin and splintering into his bones – a liquid heat that ripped through his veins, boiling inside him as he gasped and choked. 

“McKay!” He screamed again no longer sure if he was screaming for Rodney or whether he was screaming for rescue.

~x~

Carson looked down at Sheppard as he yelled incoherently, struggling with such determination that he almost wished he could let him go. He tapped the earpiece, constantly present. “Elizabeth?”

“Go ahead, Carson.” Weir’s voice came through immediately, tense and clipped. 

“He’s screaming for Rodney again, I think we should let him in here,” Carson moved away from Sheppard’s bed in order to hear and be heard over the shouting. 

“We’re nearly done here, he should be with you in a matter of minutes. Do you really think this is going to work?” 

“I have no idea,” Carson replied, rubbing his brow “but it can’t hurt to try, maybe if he’s got Rodney standing in front of him, talking to him, it’ll break through the hallucination enough to be of some help. Keeping him away certainly hasn’t done an ounce of good.” 

Elizabeth made a non-committal noise but refrained from comment. 

“I’ve given him a mild sedative in the hopes of calming him a little but it doesn’t seem to have worked. In fact, it seems to have had a rather adverse effect. Until we know what’s causing this I don’t know what else I can do,” he reported regrettably, turning back to look at Sheppard, still struggling and cursing him. 

“Just do what you can, Carson. I’ll send Rodney to you the second we’re done.” 

“Thank you, Elizabeth. Beckett out.” 

“What are we going to do with you, son?” he asked John as he wiped the hair back from his forehead. 

“Get your hands off me. I’m going to kill every fucking one of you if you don’t let me out of here right now.” 

Sheppard’s eyes burned black as he looked right at Carson, not really seeing him at all.  
~x~

Rodney listened to the one half of the conversation and was out of his seat, moving before anyone could stop him. Elizabeth tried to stand in front of him, he glanced briefly at her pale, pinched expression and bolted out the door, leaving her to catch up or get left behind. He couldn’t find it in him to care which. 

“Does Carson know what the hell happened?” he snapped at whoever had managed to keep up. 

“We’re not sure but he’s asking for you, apparently he doesn‘t know where you are.”

Hmm, Elizabeth had caught up then. 

“He knew where I was last night, he was the one that removed me from the infirmary and took me to my room. So, we know nothing about what it is or what’s causing it?” 

Elizabeth blinked at him and oh yes, that was useful. 

“Can you tell me what his symptoms are, at least? Apart from the crazy scene out there, of course, which I don’t think I’ll ever forget as long as I live,” he snapped as he punched the dot on the transporter screen that represented the infirmary. 

“He’s been shouting for you, I think he’s under the impression that you’ve been taken somewhere against your will, given recent events that’s hardly an impossibility.” 

“Me? Specifically me?” 

“Yes. Why?” 

“No reason. What else?” 

“He keeps screaming to be let go and - ”

“You had to restrain him?” Rodney felt suddenly terrified by the implications of having to restrain John. My god, why had he let them bully him into leaving it to the experts if this was the result? 

Rodney felt sick to his stomach. John had been fine last night, he’d been more than fine. 

“It was for his own good,” Elizabeth snapped reproachfully but Rodney couldn’t spare the time to reflect on whether he was being an asshole right now, they were stepping into the infirmary and John’s screams were clearly audible.

“Oh god,” Rodney managed quietly before his feet carried him forward and he was pushing Carson aside to get to John. He looked terrible, his features contorted in a mask of tortured anger; tears of frustration and pain stained his face and he struggled against the leather straps that held him down. He was drenched in sweat and there were scratches on his arms and neck, some of them deep enough to be bleeding, tiny blotches of blood against his pale skin every time he strained to get free.

“What – how -? Did he do that to himself?” Rodney asked eying the angry red welts on John’s arms. God, he only left him a couple of hours ago. 

“Aye, that’s partly why we have him restrained.” 

Rodney didn’t give Carson time to say anything further; he reached for John just as he gave a particularly violent push against his bindings. Rodney planted his hand firmly against John’s shoulder and pushed him back down. 

“Colonel?”

John’s reaction was terrifyingly instantaneous. 

“McKay?” 

His eyes flew open and as Rodney leaned over him so John could see his face, Rodney could see the madness there, burning with fierce intensity, but he could also see the recognition. 

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Rodney?” John heaved in a breath so sharply it made him cough and he turned his head as the shudders wracked his body. Rodney comforted him as best he could, his hand in constant motion between John’s shoulder and chest as he rubbed and soothed. 

John’s wrists were bound so Rodney wrapped his hand around John’s arm, just above the leather and squeezed gently. 

“What’s, uh, what’s going on?” he flinched at the inanity of his own words but he had John’s attention and he had to ask something. 

“We have to get out of here, Rodney.” John’s voice was rough from all the screaming and Rodney thought that if it kept breaking that way every time his name was spoken he might just have to put his head against John’s and cry for a while. 

“Out of where?” he asked, vaguely aware of Carson nodding at him in the background. 

“How did you get in here?” John asked by way of an answer, his head whipping from side to side and straining up in a futile attempt to see around him. “Did you escape?  
Did they let you go?”

“Just play along for now,” Carson whispered from behind him, “the more we can find out about what he’s seeing, the more idea we may get about what we’re dealing with.” 

Rodney swallowed nervously, he never could lie to John, but he’d try if it’d help.  
“I…uh…escaped.” Rodney said then immediately regretted it as John’s expression became a little more desperate. 

“We need to get out of here, right now, untie me.” John’s struggled again, gasping at the pain; Rodney exchanged a frantic glance with Carson but there was nothing either of them could do. 

“You can’t let him go; he’s a danger to himself.” 

Rodney scowled but turned back to John. He put his hands over the straps and tugged them uselessly. “It’s no good, Colonel, these won’t budge. I can’t get you out.” 

“You have to, Rodney, we don’t have much time. Those bastards could be looking for you already, come on.” 

Rodney pretended to try again, ignoring the sick feeling in his stomach as he watched John wrenching his wrists. 

“Stop it. Stop it,” he pushed John back against the bed. “They aren’t coming off; stop doing that, you’re hurting yourself.” His hands rubbed John’s shoulders in hopes of offering some kind of relief, his right hand strayed down to John’s chest to touch briefly over his heart then back up again. It was an unconscious thing but Rodney couldn’t stop it even once he noticed what he was doing. John seemed to be calming slightly under his touch; Rodney didn’t really want to think too deeply about that right now, he was already way too close to freaking out as it was. 

“Then you’ll have to…you have to get out of here,” John’s voice fell quietly between them, like he’d suddenly lost all the fight he had in him. “You have to go. Get to the ‘gate, Rodney.” 

For a second Rodney forgot that they were sat in the infirmary with Carson behind them and no doubt Elizabeth, Teyla and Ronon on the other side of the curtain.

“I’m not leaving you, Colonel.” He snapped, unaccountably angry with John for even suggesting it. 

“You have to,” his eyes were falling heavy too. Rodney could see he was clearly struggling to keep them open at all. “You’ve got to get to the ‘gate, dial Atlantis and get help. Get home, Rodney.” 

“Colonel?” Rodney was terrified but he didn’t let it show in his voice, “Colonel?” 

John’s eyes were rolling and his voice was failing. 

“They drugged me,” he slurred out, “I think the bastards drugged me, you have to go, Rodney.”

“It wouldn’t do any good, I don’t have my radio or my IDC and I’m not leaving you, come on Colonel, talk to me.” Rodney shook him and John’s opened his eyes long enough to look right at him. 

“Dial to a friendly,” he murmured, “get them to dial Atlantis, promise me you’ll get home, Rodney.” His eyes closed again as he started to drift. Rodney’s hand slid into his where it lay on the bed and he squeezed John’s fingers. 

“Promise me,” John slurred and squeezed back. It was too close, too close to how this could really happen and Rodney wanted to scream because he wasn’t sure that John didn’t think he was dying and that this was the only thing he had left to ensure Rodney’s safety. 

“Promise me, damn it.” 

Rodney hated death bed promises, even if they were the hallucinations of a crazy Lieutenant Colonel.

“I promise, you bastard.” 

John gave the tiniest smile and his eyes closed and his body slumped, no longer tensed in frustration. Rodney ran his hand through John’s hair, it was sweat-damp and tangled around his fingers but Rodney just brushed his finger tips against the soft warmth of John’s scalp. He just sat there looking at John, touching him gently, even as Carson stepped forward and checked his vitals, pronouncing him asleep under the effects of the sedative. Finally. 

~x~

Rodney sat there for a long time, too long maybe, but he couldn’t bear to move, not yet. His hands still hovered over John and he knew he was reassuring himself that John was safe and still breathing. Yes, he was perfectly aware that that made him nearly as crazy as the Colonel, thank you very much. It didn’t stop him from running his fingers up and down the smooth skin on the inside of John’s forearm though.

He needed to keep touching, needed to know John was okay. He felt stupid, redundant almost, as he just sat and stroked.

Elizabeth coughed pointedly from the other side of the curtain but Rodney ignored her, he didn’t feel bad about it, he couldn’t, John needed him far more than Elizabeth did. His head was still spinning - just a few hours ago he and John had been sleeping side by side in his quarters, squeezed together on a narrow bed. Now John was literally climbing walls and screaming blue murder. 

Rodney took a deep breath and rolled his eyes as another cough came from just outside and Carson looked at him, his eyes gently questioning. Rodney sighed and nodded, he shifted his gaze back to John as the curtain was opened and Elizabeth came and stood on the other side of the bed. Rodney was aware of Ronon and Teyla coming to stand behind him and he was pathetically grateful for their support. 

Elizabeth looked at him expectantly and he just shook his head. 

“I don’t know,” was all he managed, he felt too damn weary, beyond tired, all of a sudden. 

“We made it back through the ‘gate without incident, no one shot at us or even stopped us. We just walked out of there. And, we got back three days ago, anything he picked up there would have manifested itself before now, surely.” 

“And the Doc ran all the usual tests when we came back,” Ronon added, nodding to Carson who spared a brief smile as acknowledgement. 

“Aye, we found nothing unusual in any of you as far I was made aware. We’re rechecking the results on those samples as we speak.” 

“Carson are you - ?” Rodney twirled a finger in the general vicinity of John’s elbow. 

“We’re running tests on the blood samples we took just after he finished playing Spiderman and as soon as we’re done here, I’ll take some more to compare them to. Hopefully they’ll give us something useful.”

Rodney nodded absently and resumed stroking John’s arm, letting the others talk over his head. They knew nothing that could help the Colonel right now, all Rodney could do was hope that his sleep was peaceful and that the hallucination would be over when he woke. 

Rodney sincerely doubted that either was the case. 

~x~

John woke to bright light and the now familiar grey walls of his cell. He tugged on his hands experimentally but was unsurprised to find them still bound. His head felt full, like there was no room to think and he supposed that was the after effect of the drugs he’d been given. His wrists ached like a bitch and his chest and stomach ached from the twisting and thrashing. He was also so thirsty that he was willing to beg for water. 

“Please, I need water, hey!” His voice was weak but someone heard him and came into bleary view above him. Just another White Coat. 

“Water?”

A cup was lifted and a straw pressed to his lips and he remembered Beckett telling him to take small sips or he’d make himself sick. He was so thirsty but he forced himself to take small bits at a time, he was torn between surprise and suspicion when the cup stayed within his reach until he’d drained it. His thirst won out. 

Thoughts of Beckett had led him directly to thoughts of Rodney, he desperately wanted to know whether he’d managed to escape but could hardly just ask. 

“So, you gonna let me go today or do I have to wait here until my people figure out where I am and come and rain fire and hell down on you? Shouldn’t take ‘em long.”  
The faceless White Coat didn’t answer him, just moved away. Shit, well they could have told him something. If they’d recaptured Rodney they would have bragged about it, surely. They would have wanted him to know that there was no hope of rescue; their silence could only be a good thing. Right? 

Without warning, the room flickered around him and he was lying in an infirmary bed in Atlantis. John turned his head from side to side, greedily took in the sights and familiar smells even as his head lurched and a wave of dizziness hit. 

“Woah, shit,” he scrunched his eyes closed and breathed carefully in and out waiting for the nausea to pass. When he opened his eyes he was back in the grey room, dull and unending

Some one else was in the room now, talking quietly with the White Coat, before coming to lean over his bed. 

Oh hell. Not possible. 

John shut his eyes and took a deep breath but the familiar form was still there looking down at him when he opened them again.

“Colonel Sheppard?”

“Carson?” John asked, now thoroughly confused, he couldn’t be part of a rescue team, he’d stopped to chat with that White Coat. 

“Yes, son. Glad you recognise me. You gave us quite a scare. How are you feeling this morning?”

It made no sense, it made no fucking sense whatsoever.

“Doc, what are you doing here? Where’s Rodney, did he make it back?” 

“Oh damn,” Beckett said, looking at him pityingly. “Can you tell me where you think we are, Colonel Sheppard?” 

“I don’t know and I don’t mind telling you, Doc, I’m pretty freaked out by all this. If you’re here that means Rodney got back to the city, right?” 

“Umm, ah, yes, yes. I don’t suppose it could hurt to say that he did.”

“What?” John felt the panic flutter in his stomach; what did that mean? ‘Say that he did’? What if that wasn’t Beckett? Oh god, these guys were fucking with his head, that wasn’t Beckett? The drugs they gave him, they were hallucinatory drugs. 

“Fuck, I get it now. I’m seeing things, right? Those drugs, they make me hallucinate, see things that aren’t really there?” 

“Aye, that could be right, Colonel. Did you take something; can you tell me what it was?” Not-Beckett asked, and John had to give them their due, it was the good shit he was on because this guy was very Beckett-like. 

“It was whatever you bastards gave me, now fuck off, you’re not Beckett.” 

“I can assure you I am, Colonel. Oh god, I’m not the hallucination, you bloody - the rest of it is. John, listen to me, you’re on Atlantis, and you’re safe in the infirmary.” 

John’s breath froze in his chest, they knew about Atlantis, how was that possible? Had he said something? He couldn’t remember, damn it, where the hell was he and what the fuck was going on? Had he even seen Rodney last night or had that been a hallucination too? 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” John said and turned his head away, damned if he’d give the bastards anything else. 

“Yes you do, come on Colonel Sheppard, you’re home and safe.”

“Oh, I’m sure I am and if I could just divulge our defence capabilities and security codes to prove that I understand that, I suppose you’d be grateful? How about you just tell me where I really am and why I’m here?” 

Not-Beckett actually looked concerned. “You’re in Atlantis, I promise,” he said quietly. 

“Yeah? Well, if that’s true why don’t you just let me go, huh?” He yanked at the straps holding him down, determinedly not crying out at the burning pain in his wrists. 

“I can’t do that, Colonel, you’re not yourself and it would be dangerous.” 

“Right.” Sheppard glared at him then snapped his mouth shut; he had nothing further to say to. Finally, Not-Beckett left and John turned his head and closed his eyes.

~x~

“Rodney?” the voice in Rodney’s ear made him jump, he grabbed his chest like that would help with the sharp ache. 

“Rodney?” Carson called again, abruptly knocking him from his empty reverie. He lifted his head from his keyboard and tapped his earpiece as he glanced at his watch. 

Huh, it was morning apparently. 

“Carson? Is he awake? How is he?” 

“Round up Ronon and Teyla and meet me in Elizabeth’s office, I’ll fill you all in at once.” 

“That doesn’t sound particularly reassuring,” Rodney cursed the break in his own voice and tried to cough it away, it was just tiredness. 

“He’s still hallucinating, Rodney, but it seems to be weaker,” Carson explained, sounding far too awake for Rodney’s liking. 

“What do you mean ‘weaker’, what does that mean?” Rodney snapped. 

“Meet me in Elizabeth’s office and I’ll explain. I don’t want to keep covering the same ground with you all.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll fetch the others and meet you there.” 

Rodney downed last night’s cold coffee and valiantly ignored how much his hand trembled as he put the empty mug back on the table. He shook a couple of pain pills from the bottle on the night stand and went into the bathroom to swallow them down. 

He spared a moment to brush his teeth and throw cold water on his face in a vain attempt to lessen the keyboard imprint on his cheek. Then he stepped out the door, only to step back in moments later having decided that getting dressed before walking through the halls of the city would probably be less traumatic for all involved.

Rodney found Teyla and Ronon just as they were leaving the mess. Teyla had her hands wrapped around a sturdy mug of the Athosian spiced tea that Rodney swore was evil in liquid form. Ronon had a mug of coffee in each hand and held one out to Rodney as soon as he was in grabbing range. The gesture caught Rodney slightly off guard but he stammered his thanks and took a blissfully scalding sip. 

“We were just coming to find you. Dr Weir is requesting our presence,” Teyla told him as they turned and walked towards the control centre.

“I know, Beckett radioed me and told me to find you then meet him in Elizabeth’s office.”

“Did he say how Sheppard is this morning?” Ronon asked as he took position a step behind them. Rodney wasn’t sure why he found that comforting but he did, even if it meant he had to answer over his shoulder. 

“Just that he’s still hallucinating but that it’s weaker than yesterday; whatever that means.” 

Ronon nodded like that answered his question and Rodney sank gratefully back into his coffee.

“Rodney?” Teyla was using the voice that Rodney often associated with trying not to spook wild animals or homicidal natives. It was a very calming voice he had to admit. 

“Did you sleep at all last night?” 

Rodney realised that he’s been walking, and inhaling his coffee, with his eyes closed. 

He blinked them open and looked at her. 

“Umm, a little,” he pointed out the rather obvious keyboard indentations on his face.

“I think she meant in a bed, McKay,” Ronon stopped and Teyla and Rodney did too, conditioned response. Ronon reached out and grabbed Rodney’s face, tilting it so he could see the marks. He shook his head and shared a look with Teyla. 

“Watch it,” Rodney grumbled, “coffee on the floor is sacrilege in my world. I need that coffee.” He pulled his face free and glared at Ronon, too weary to be worried about the consequences. 

“Come on, we should be - ” he gave a vague wave towards Elizabeth’s office where she and Carson could clearly be seen waiting for them. 

“My god man, did you sleep at all?” Carson asked the minute Rodney got through the door. 

“Yes, thank you, I did.” He snapped, so not in the mood to go through this again. 

“I can tell,” Elizabeth said, eyebrows raised with a look somewhere between gently disapproving and slightly amused. 

“Look, this isn’t the first time you’ve seen me with a face like a laptop so can we please move on to the reason we’re all here and stop obsessing over the fact that I slept at my desk.” He glared at them all in turn, daring any one of them to take it further. 

“Of course,” Elizabeth placated, “Carson, if you would please?”

“Certainly. Right as you probably know by now Colonel Sheppard woke up this morning still very much under the influence of the hallucination. He asked for water and asked if he was going to be released today. The nurse he spoke to came and fetched me and when I went in he recognised me.”

“But that’s good, right?” Rodney asked, “that’s what you meant by a weaker hallucination, reality’s starting to leak in, as it were?” 

“Aye, that’s about it. Problem is he doesn’t believe reality, he thinks that Atlantis is the hallucination.”

“Why would he think that?” Ronon asked pushing away from the wall and folding his arms over his chest. 

“He asked about Rodney,” Carson answered, sparing a glance at him, “he asked whether my presence meant that you’d made it back to the city. I said that I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to say that you had.” 

Rodney winced, “you said ‘you supposed it wouldn’t hurt to say’?” 

Carson nodded gravely. 

“And that set off warning bells in Sheppard’s head and now he thinks you’re the hallucination not the scenario that’s playing out in his addled mind.”

“I believe so,” Carson turned to Elizabeth where she sat behind her desk, elbows resting on the arms of her chair, fingers steepled and pressed to her lips. 

“He’s convinced that there are hallucinatory drugs in his system,” Carson explained, “and they’re making him see me and believe that the only reason I’m there is to get information on Atlantis. I’m afraid he now thinks I’m the enemy.” 

Elizabeth nodded, “did his blood test results show anything out of the ordinary?” 

“Aye, just as we thought it would. His tox screen results showed a high level of a substance the closest thing we can identify with would be phencyclidine – uh, PCP.” 

“PCP, as in Angel Dust?” Rodney asked. 

“Aye,” Carson nodded, giving him a suspicious look, Rodney rolled his eyes - hello, totally not stupid enough to do anything that would mess with his brain.

“PCPs are listed as a Schedule II drug under the Convention on Psychotropic Substances in the United States but this is like a super-PCP,” Carson continued. 

“Normally the psychoactive effects of the drug last only a few hours at most but the drug itself takes weeks to be completely eliminated from the body.” 

“Weeks?” Weir voiced the question as Rodney was still processing it. 

“That’s in normal cases, this isn’t a normal case – this stuff is slow acting and aggressive, once we knew what we were looking for we were able to find trace elements in the early blood tests we took when the Colonel returned from retrieving Rodney.” 

Rodney swallowed and stood up needing to burn off some of his agitation. “Kolya said -”

“We know what Kolya said Rodney, we don’t know that this is directly related,” Weir said carefully. 

Rodney rolled his eyes, “It is related, Kolya did this. Unless of course, Sheppard’s the sane one and we’re not really here or are sharing some kind of group hallucination. Hmm, I really wish I hadn’t thought of that. Are we real? Pinch me,” he ordered, shoving his arm under Ronon’s nose, “on second thought, don’t, it’ll hurt.” 

“Last night,” Rodney continued, “before we knew this thing was in his blood, Radek and I ran every trace we could think of to identify any signal coming in to, or being emitted by the city. We found nothing that we couldn’t already account for. All the catalogued Ancient technology had also been accounted for so we know John hasn’t wandered off with anything dangerous in his insatiable need to touch things. I also used the security system to track his movements, as far as possible, from the moment he came back through the ‘gate to the moment he ran out onto the balcony and there was nothing unusual in his routine.” Rodney prayed that nobody followed that up when the security footage quite clearly showed him leaving Rodney’s quarters at an ungodly hour. “We ran diagnostics on the air filtration systems, emergency response systems, water purification systems - everything we could think of and nothing was malfunctioning. He didn’t inhale, swallow or ingest anything dangerous on his rounds -” 

“No more coffee,” Carson said, taking the cup out of Rodney’s hand and pushing him gently into an empty chair. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Carson, I need coffee.” Rodney sat down though, he wasn’t a fool; he knew that if he didn’t make too much of a fuss now no one would stop him from reclaiming his coffee as they left. “It was Kolya,” Rodney said, putting them back on track. 

“We don’t know that,” Weir insisted.

“Actually, it looks likely, I’m sorry. The only way this stuff could have gotten into Colonel Sheppard’s bloodstream was when he cut his hands on P1X 27Y.” 

“The – the blades, he cut his fingers on the blades in the ropes when he was untying me and they were - what? Laced with this stuff?” Rodney felt sick. 

“We think so,” Carson replied quietly. 

Rodney turned his head away, unable to look at the others for a moment, clearing his throat; he tilted his chin up and stared at Carson. 

“You said this isn’t a normal case, any indication of what we can expect?” 

“It’s theorised that PCPs can cause lesions on the brain causing brain damage and eventually death so naturally we’re concerned that an extreme drug like this one is going to significantly more dangerous. We’re doing everything we can to find something to counter-act the effects of the drug without doing more damage to Colonel Sheppard.” 

“Kolya wanted him dead,” Rodney said quickly, “he said the whole debacle was nothing but a way to get Sheppard where he wanted him. I kept telling the Colonel that it was too easy, the whole extraction was too easy, but he, he – well, there was nothing he could do, was there?” 

Nobody answered him this time. 

“So, do you have any suggestion as to what we do next?” Elizabeth asked looking from Carson to Rodney and back again. Rodney shrugged, he didn’t know and it was so hard to focus without caffeine. 

“The next step we’ll take will be to run further work on his blood. In the meantime, his hallucination was breaking up this morning, I recommend pushing it to see if we can destabilize it further.” 

“What do you suggest we do?” Elizabeth asked before Rodney even got his mouth open, he really must be tired. 

“We send Teyla in to talk to him, he trusts her and she has a nice calming nature,” Carson smiled over at Teyla and she bowed her head to him. Rodney rolled his eyes, he could be calming, in the right circumstances, he was certain of it. Though perhaps it would be better to send Teyla this time, he grudgingly admitted.

“I’d, um, I’d like to see him though, if I could.” Rodney suddenly wished he wasn’t so weary. His voice was betraying him again and he hated it when Carson got that stupid soft smile on his face. There’d be a hand on his shoulder in a minute and Rodney really hadn’t had enough sleep or caffeine to adequately deal with that sort of behaviour. 

“I know you would Rodney,” oh god, Carson was coming closer, “let Teyla try getting through to him first though. He thinks you’ve escaped and seeing you again while he’s hallucinating will only confuse him further.” And there was the hand on his shoulder. Rodney shot up, heading for the door as fast as he could.

“Let’s get on with it then shall we? No time to lose.”

“Aye, I suggest we do. Elizabeth?”

“I agree, let’s give it a shot.” 

They exited the office as one, Teyla leading them out. Ronon let the others get a step ahead before pulling Rodney back and pressing the coffee cup into his hands. 

“When I’m not quite so tired or, you know, humiliatingly close to a stupendous overreaction due to frustration and anxiety I’m going to want to know why you’re being so nice to me.”

“It won’t last,” Ronon muttered, steering him towards the transporter. 

“Good, it’s remarkably unnerving.”

~x~

Unfortunately the ‘Talk with Teyla’ plan was clearly a bust. John flat out refused to even acknowledge her. He spoke only once and that was to call out to the room at large that it was a good try, an A1 for effort. Apparently she was a great hallucination but Teyla couldn’t possibly be there because she’d never been taken in the first place and if that had been ‘his’ Teyla she’d have been heavily armed and backed up by Ronon, at least a dozen marines and probably McKay as well.

“What does he mean ‘probably’?” Rodney had muttered, frustrated beyond belief, he just wanted to get in there and speak to John, touch him, tell him he was safe. 

“Maybe I should try?” Elizabeth murmured aloud as they stood just outside the curtained area assigned to John and his craziness.

“He won’t listen to you,” Rodney said quietly, not unkindly. 

“Will he listen to you, Rodney?” 

He looked at her and saw far more than that one question written on her face. He should scoff and say something inane about never giving the Colonel a choice but to listen to him, but he couldn’t. All he could do was meet her gaze and nod, pleading for understanding as he did. 

“Yes, he’ll listen to me.” 

“Alright,” the small smile she gave him was warm and genuine and Rodney felt relief flood through him.

“Go and talk to him,” Elizabeth nodded at the curtain and sent Rodney through with a warm hand on his shoulder. 

“Thank you,” he whispered grateful for so many things. 

~x~

“Colonel?” Rodney approached the bed slowly. 

“Rodney?”

God, John’s voice was disturbingly quiet. 

“Yeah, you okay?” Rodney asked with a gentleness that he didn’t know he had in him. John’s answering laugh bordered on hysterical and wasn’t in the least bit reassuring. 

“I’m so far from okay; I lost okay a long time ago - along with my mind, apparently.” John looked up at him. “You were supposed to escape,” he accused. 

“John, I need you to listen to me.” 

John was glaring at him now, eyes angry and more than a little lost. He drew in a breath as if in pain and threw his head to the side as he breathed raggedly. 

“What’s the matter? Does your head hurt?” Rodney moved forward and reached out, putting his hand on John’s neck and using his thumb to gently tilt John’s head back to face him. “Do you need Carson?” 

“I’m so confused, Rodney,” John sounded broken and hell if that wasn’t the most disturbing thing Rodney had ever experienced. 

“It’s okay, John, tell me what you see.” 

“It’s all so confusing, I don’t know – I can’t – I keep seeing of flashes of things I want to see and I don’t think any of it’s real. I don’t even think you’re real but I’m now officially past giving a fuck. I won’t give you any information, I won’t tell you a damn thing but if I’m going to die a crazy man locked in a gray room then I’m going to embrace that craziness and talk to you until then.”

“Shut up, you’re not going to die, you idiot.” Rodney felt the urge to shake John, instead he left his hand where it was against John’s neck and let his finger tips smooth carefully into his hair line 

“You’re not going to die because you’re safe in Atlantis, in the infirmary, nothing’s going to happen to you.” 

“I’d give anything to know that was true.” 

“It’s true, John, I wouldn’t lie to you. You know that, you know I wouldn’t.” Rodney said earnestly, lending John a quiet strength to grasp hold of. 

“See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about.” John’s eyes were red and glassy as they disappeared from view behind tightly squeezed eyelids. 

“What? What do you mean?” 

“That’s the second time you’ve called me John, my Rodney doesn’t call me John. You’re not real, you can’t be and I’m so confused.”

“I have called you John before, I called you John in that cowboy town on P1X 27Y – more than once.”

“Is that supposed to prove something?” John asked harshly, “my mind knows that, remembers every second perfectly so my hallucinations would know it too. It doesn’t prove you’re really him. Fuck, my head hurts!” 

“Hurts how? I’ll get Carson.” 

“No! He’s not – you’re not, don’t, don’t,” John was shaking is head violently and his fingers were stretching against the restraints trying to reach for Rodney.

“Okay, okay, calm down, you need to calm down John – and yes, I am calling you John, deal with it. Look at me, look at me.” Rodney slid his hand up to cup John’s cheek and steadied him, forcing them face to face. “You have to calm down, you’re in no danger here, I promise.” 

“I can - sometimes I can see the infirmary,” John said very quietly. 

“That’s because the hallucinations are breaking down and you’re starting to see what’s around you.” 

“I can’t risk that it’s the other way round, Rodney.”

“That’s a scarily familiar concept,” Rodney would have laughed but it really wasn’t funny. 

“What?” 

“Nothing, I’m sorry. Look, I know things are really confusing for you right now,” Rodney couldn’t bring himself to release his hold on John so he just kept his hand against the feverish skin, rubbing his thumb along John’s jaw line. “I know, but I’m right here and I’m real, I swear. I’m the same Rodney that has you chasing whales, the same me that still flinches when you make me go on the shooting range. The same one that told you off for Kirking around Jeannie and the one that got mad at you because I thought you liked Rod more than me.” Rodney swallowed and leaned in, lowering his volume. “I’m the me that waits for you to come to the lab at night, I’m the me that’s too selfish to give up those moments even though I know they’re dangerous. Also,” he raised his voice again, “I’m going to start calling you John more often.” 

“Rodney?” John closed his eyes, his skin flushed and his body wracked with minute tremors.

“Uh huh?”

“Did I hit my head? It really hurts? What the fuck is going on with me?” 

“It’s okay - ”

“It’s really, really not,” John contradicted desperately. 

“You’re right, it’s not. You’ve been drugged, John, that bastard son of a bitch Kolya managed to – managed – he laced the blades you cut yourself on when you were untying me. He got to you by using me but you are on Atlantis, Carson is just the other side of that curtain and he’s doing everything he can to help.” Rodney was vaguely aware of footsteps, movement from someone, probably Carson judging by the faint muttering sounds. 

“I don’t remember, was I – I remember you, I remember watching you go through the ‘gate and then being mad at you. Is that right, when was that?” Still so much confusion, but that was a definite improvement. 

“Yes, good, yes, that was three days ago. What else, John?” 

“I, uh…god, I don’t know, I can’t – shit, that hurts!” John was obviously trying to reach for his head but he ended up just pulling uselessly at the restraints. 

“All right, all right, take it easy.” Rodney smoothed his fingers through John’s hair, taking his time to do what John couldn’t. John leaned into his touch, pushing his head against Rodney’s hand. 

“Can’t. Hurts.” John’s eyes were squeezed shut again but tiny, prickling trails of tears leaked from his eyes, betraying his pain and seeping, hot and desperate, into the palm of Rodney’s hand. 

“Rodney,” he arched off the bed, hissing from behind clenched teeth. 

“Oh god, John? Hang on. Carson! Carson!” Rodney bellowed, then without further thought he climbed up onto John’s bed and knelt beside him, leaning forward, using both hands to cup John’s head and shush him uselessly. 

“Carson’s coming, hang on, okay? John? John? Damn it, Carson!” 

John went still beneath him. Still and feverish as his eyes rolled back in his head and he slipped into unconsciousness. Rodney slid one hand round the back of John’s head and was using the other to fumble frantically for a pulse just as Carson ran in. Elizabeth, Teyla and Ronon a step behind him, Rodney didn’t stop to think of the picture they must have made. His thoughts were too busy tumbling out of his mouth. 

“He just, he said his head was hurting, there was gasping and, and tears, shit, tears and then he was out cold.” 

He moved his hands as Carson reached for John’s pulse, already pulling the stethoscope from round his neck and fitting it in place. “His pulse is all over the place. I’m going to need you to wait outside.”

Rodney was going to protest, loudly and vehemently, but then the room was suddenly swarming with nurses and Ronon was pulling him gently off John’s bed. He was manhandled out the door as he craned his head, desperate to see what was happening to John. Finally ushered into the room they had put aside for team members during times like these, Rodney untangled himself from the combined efforts of Ronon and Teyla. He walked to the far side of the room and flung himself against the wall and put his hands on his knees and just let his head hang. There was a hand on his back and Teyla’s gentle voice saying something but Rodney just shook it off and slid to the floor. He put his head in his hands and sighed. 

“Please, shut up,” he begged quietly. 

The room fell silent and they waited. 

~x~

Elizabeth had been the first to be called away, Chuck had radioed through with some pressing business and she’d gone back to the control tower. Teyla was meditating, curled up on one of the chairs on the other side of the room. Ronon was flicking through a beauty magazine, pausing every so often to turn the whole thing on its side and stare at it quizzically. Rodney sat and thought about the fact that someone had brought those magazines from Earth and put them there, it was such a mundane thought that it made his chest tighten. Ronon turned the magazine again, this time with a concentrated frown. For some inexplicable reason, this made Rodney laugh, Ronon glanced up at him.

“People pay attention to this crap on Earth?” 

“The stupid ones, I guess,” he said quietly. 

“Is this girl really heir to a throne?” 

Rodney glanced at the picture of some drunken blonde with mascara all over her face and a bottle in her hand. 

“I have no idea who she even is, what makes you ask that?” 

“It says she’s ‘a Pop Princess’, what the hell is a ‘Pop’?”

Rodney snorted softly and climbed wearily to his feet. “It’s – umm – some other time, okay? Where’s Carson, surely we should know something by now?” 

Ronon was looking at him, magazine discarded, “you should get some sleep,” he suggested quietly, looking at Rodney with a gentle openness that, quite frankly, he found terrifying. 

“Yeah,” Rodney sighed, “but I’m not leaving until we’ve heard something.” 

“Not suggesting you do, I’m not that stupid. You could stretch out here, sleep in the chair.” 

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Do you have any idea what that would do to my back?” He moaned even as he found himself moving over to a padded bench seat and stretching out. “If - ”

“I’ll wake you,” Ronon promised.

~x~

Ronon didn’t have to wake Rodney, the screaming of the gate alarm woke him from the light doze he’d fallen into and he was on his feet before he even realized he was awake.

“What’s going on?” he asked, noting Teyla was already on the radio to the control room. 

“I am not certain, Elizabeth is requesting our presence immediately.” She paused to listen to her radio for a moment. “It is Kolya,” she spat. 

Rodney flushed with fury; he knew that bastard was responsible for John’s situation. He was out the door and on his way to the control room, leaving Ronon and Teyla to run and catch him up or get left behind. 

He made it there just in time to hear Kolya say “and how is Colonel Sheppard?” but the voice was too loud and slightly distorted, it was a video transmission, the man wasn’t on Atlantis. Rodney pushed past Elizabeth, “Where are you, you son of a bitch?”

“Ah, my dear Dr. McKay,” Kolya smiled sickeningly into the camera, his image plastered onto the monitor in front of them. 

“You’re an idiot and a coward, Kolya – lying low in whichever underground hidey hole you’ve found now.” 

Kolya’s face turned carefully bored, but it was easy to see that he was quietly seething underneath the poorly constructed mask. 

“What did you do to him, Kolya?” It was a question but even to Rodney’s own ears it sounded more like a threat. 

“It was very simple, the blades that were laced into your bindings were covered with the hallucinogen, once in his blood stream it was able to establish a hold on him,” Kolya gloated. 

“That is truly stupid,” Rodney said, astounded by Kolya’s idiocy. “It was never a guarantee that Sheppard would be the one to untie me, it could have been any one.” 

“No,” Kolya said, looking straight at McKay through the video feed, “no, it really couldn’t have.” 

Rodney fell quiet for a moment, the implications of that statement too vast for him to contemplate at this moment. “What do you possibly hope to accomplish from all this?” Rodney snapped finally, “when Sheppard is back on his feet he’s going to -” 

Kolya laughed, it was a cold cruel sound, “Sheppard wont be ‘back on his feet’, Dr McKay, that is what I’ll accomplish from all this. The drug in Sheppard’s system is a slow acting hallucinogen, it takes a couple of days to really get a grip on the mind but once it does it’s a desperate race to stop it before it’s too late. I take it he’s already experienced the fever and dizziness? I imagine that right now he’s in the throws of some horrific hallucinations. Those will continue until he’s completely overwhelmed by them and his brain begins to shut down out of self-defence. His organs will cease to work, his heart will stop and he will die. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to transfer the video feed so that I could see it? No? Never mind, the look on Dr. McKay’s face is enough for me - that and Sheppard’s death, of course.” 

Rodney felt himself pale, felt his knees turn to liquid but he forced himself to let out a derisive laugh. “Our doctors are working with Sheppard. They will cure him and you will have lost again, Kolya.” 

“Your doctors will have to act very fast indeed, the drug takes hold and shows no mercy – and I don’t imagine it’s something they’ve come across before. That will slow them down considerably, won’t it? I would wish them well but I’m already sure they won’t succeed and Sheppard will die,” Kolya snapped but he seemed slightly less sure of himself. “And I have to tell you, Dr McKay, your reactions are worth all the effort that went into this operation.” 

Rodney flung himself towards the camera, “Where are you, you bastard?” he snarled uselessly, “Where are you?” 

Okay, yelling felt good, yelling, shouting, screaming felt like the only release in the world right now, snarling at Kolya’s laughing face in the monitor he was dimly aware of Ronon grabbing him and hauling him away. Teyla was helping him and Rodney struggled madly, just trying to get free, trying to scream some more because it felt good even though it wasn’t logical. 

“Let go of me, you great, stupid wookie. Let go. I want to know where that bastard is.”

Ronon pushed them into an empty corridor and finally let go of him. Rodney staggered a couple of steps then just stood there uselessly in the middle of the corridor.

“You just gave him exactly what he wanted, McKay,” Ronon’s voice was quiet and sad rather than unkind. 

“I don’t care,” he exploded, “I don’t care.” Rodney sunk to his knees suddenly far to weary to stand any longer. Ronon bent down and pushed at his shoulder until he had no choice but to lean back against the wall. 

“What are you doing?” Rodney asked without really caring, allowing himself to be manhandled and rearranged against the wall with his feet stretched out in front of him. Ronon then settled next to him in the same position and Teyla came and curled up in a half lotus on the other side. 

“We rest for a moment,” Ronon ordered, “then we carry on.” 

“Very sound advice, Chewie. Do either of you have a power bar?” Rodney asked, letting his head drop back against the wall. 

“Sheppard calls me that sometimes,” Ronon said as he pulled a foil wrapped bar from his pocket and handed it to Rodney. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to tell me what it means.” 

“When he’s better we’ll watch Star Wars,” Rodney promised with a small laugh. He turned the power bar over and over in his hands, not opening it. “Things have been so busy around here, it’s so crazy that we haven’t even had time to introduce you to Han Solo – that’s appalling.” 

“Han Solo?” Ronon asked. 

“Practically Sheppard’s idol,” Rodney said with a grin. It was a forced smile at best, they all knew it but none of them commented on it. 

“Eat that,” Ronon said finally, “then we’ll go back to the infirmary.” 

Rodney sighed and ripped the foil open. 

~x~

They’d started back to the infirmary without checking with Elizabeth how the conversation with Kolya had ended, they knew all they needed to, for now. The transporter dumped them just outside the infirmary and immediately John’s terrified screams could be heard echoing through the hallway. 

Rodney ran. 

“John! John!” 

John was arched off the bed, his face twisted and flushed as he screamed wordlessly and thrashed wildly. Rodney got a knee up on the bed and leaned over him cupping his face.

“John, it’s not real, whatever you’re seeing it’s not real! Damn it, John, come on,” 

“Not my eyes, not my eyes!” John sobbed and reared off the bed, screaming again. He was twisting his head, trying to shake Rodney’s grip. “Don’t – fuck – don’t, god, my eyes.”

“No one’s touching your eyes. You’re fine, you’re safe.” Rodney didn’t know what else to do he just kept saying the same thing over and over. He turned back to Ronon and Teyla. “He’s not listening – he, he can’t hear me,” he told them desperately. 

“Don’t stop now,” Ronon growled. 

Given no choice Rodney turned back to John, he pushed his shoulder, forcing him back against the mattress. John pushed back against him, his teeth bared and the muscles in his neck clearly straining with the effort. 

“Colonel, stop it, you’re fine. I promise.” Rodney tried again and nearly toppled right over the bed when John suddenly allowed himself to be pushed back. His body went worryingly slack and his breath heaved in his chest but he lay back down. His eyes were bloodshot and rolling wildly, he was quite obviously seeing nothing of the room around him. 

“John?” Rodney asked quietly, his fingers creeping back to John’s face to trace his cheekbone. 

“Rodney?” 

“M’right here.” 

“I can’t see; I can’t see a damn thing. My eyes - ”

“Your eyes are fine, Colonel,” Rodney said loudly, “this, this blindness or whatever it is, is completely psychosomatic. There’s nothing wrong with your eyes.” Rodney looked over at Carson, praying that he wasn’t lying to John. 

Carson nodded and murmured, “his eyes are fine, it’s the hallucination.” 

Rodney let out a breath. “You’re fine, I promise.”

“I’m not fine McKay, I can’t see a fucking thing,” John snapped back and for the first time his voice held strength. Rodney was so relieved to hear irritation over fear that he didn’t even care that he was the target. “You will, if you calm down and listen to me.”

“I always listen to you,” John said quietly and Rodney fancied it was a form of apology. 

“That’s because I’m always right. I’m right this time too, just calm down and try and…and get some sleep.” 

“Get some sleep? I’ve been kidnapped, tied to a bed, drugged and tortured and you’re telling me to get some sleep?” John asked incredulously, his eyes still searching the room, focusing on nothing. 

“You have not been kidnapped, I thought you said you always listen to me, I told you, you’re fine. No kidnapping, no torture. God, John, no torture.”

“Yeah? Well, I wish I was in your world, because this one sucks, so much,” John said quietly. 

“You are in my world, John, you’re right here in the infirmary and we’re going to find out what’s happening to you and stop it.”

“Actually,” Carson muttered, “I may have something of use in the results from our last round of tests. This is an antipsychotic similar to the prototypes for Clozapine but a wee bit stronger. It’s not a cure but it should help.” 

“Good - ”

“What the hell is that?” John interrupted as Carson slid the needle into his arm, “Rodney?” 

“It’s just Carson, he’s standing right next to the bed, he’s giving you something to help – it’ll help with the hallucinations.” 

“Carson? You’re sure?” 

“He’s right in front of me, I’m sure. Be quiet a minute.” Rodney smoothed his fingers through John’s hair to take the sting from his words. 

John gave a truly frustrated sigh, “What the hell’s going on with me?”

“That’s what we’re trying to determine,” Rodney answered. “Carson?” 

“After you last spoke to Colonel Sheppard we ran the usual blood works, CT, EEG tests. The EEG showed signs of Encephalitis, a swelling in the brain that’s usually caused by viruses occurring from insect bites, food or drink contamination, that sort of thing. Not a usual side effect of PCPs but then this isn’t the usual drug, it’s the Genii equivalent, if you will.” 

Rodney scowled fiercely and wished, with all his being that Kolya was in front of him so that he could shoot the bastard. 

“There’re also signs of brain herniation,” Carson continued, looking from Ronon to Teyla briefly, his eyes finally resting back on Rodney. “Cerebrospinal fluid and some blood vessels that have been displaced due to the swelling.” 

“Is he,” Rodney swallowed, “is he bleeding – is there intracranial bleeding?” Rodney asked, tasting the words in his mouth like a foreign language. 

“No,” Carson looked down at John and placed a hand gently against his shoulder. “We’re scanning you regularly but there isn’t any sign of it yet and there isn’t likely to be. The swelling has caused the pressure to increase and that’s what’s caused the herniation but there’s no sign of hemorrhaging.” 

Rodney reached up to stroke John’s hair but this time his hand faltered, not entirely sure he should touch. 

“It’s fine,” Carson said, then carried on as if he had never spoken so gently, “the major problem we have now is that if it increases he’s in real danger of massive stroke. The compression in vital parts of his brain could lead to problems with his breathing and circulation. Brain damage is a real possibility, I’m afraid.” 

“What can we do?” Rodney asked, the weight in his chest spread up to his throat, choking him as he spoke. 

“We need him to rest and stay calm, that and very mild physical therapy to ensure adequate blood flow to the brain. His brain has entered a state of hypermetabolism, we’ll keep him on the drip for the added nutrients he needs and he’ll stay on the oxygen for as long as necessary. It’s not ideal but the hallucinations are breaking up and he’s hearing you more easily and almost believing what he’s being told. It’s hopeful.” 

“Hopeful?” Rodney repeated, his hand still carding softly through John’s hair. He looked down to see hazel eyes staring back at him, looking straight into his own. 

“You can see me?” he asked very quietly. 

“Perfectly,” John answered as a tired smile crept slowly across his face. 

“What else do you see?” Rodney asked, aware of the hush that had settled around them. 

“My vision is flickering. I’m seeing a room, gray walls, strip lights, one door – then Atlantis, the infirmary, machines and an IV.” 

“Thank god,” Rodney breathed, “you’re getting there John, just hold onto that image.” 

“Nearly home?” John whispered. 

“Yeah, nearly home.” Rodney could feel a tight, hot ball of pain in his stomach, it uncoiled and slid up his chest, burning as it went. He choked on it, trying to hide the cough that burst from his chest. 

“Rodney?” John’s fingers strained in the restraints, grabbing out for him, so he slid his hand against John’s and held tight. 

“It’s fine, just get some sleep.” 

“M’in Atlantis?” 

“You really are,” Rodney sighed. 

“Carson around?” 

“Here, lad. What d’you need?” Carson said gently, stepping up to the bed so John could see him. 

“Hey doc, you real?” He asked with a slight grin. 

“Aye,” Carson laughed. 

“He hasn’t eaten,” John turned to look at Rodney. “Hands are shaking,” he answered Rodney’s questioning glare. 

“Oh, shut up. I just had a power bar,” Rodney snapped but it came out more of a moan.

“That’s not enough,” John said. Rodney felt the urge to laugh hysterically at this moment of lucidity from John but thought that it probably wouldn’t help matters if he did. 

“I’ll see to him, Colonel,” Carson promised. 

“Thanks, doc.” 

“Will you please just shut up and go to sleep, you need to rest.” 

“Yessir,” John slurred, his eyes closing, fingers losing their grip to rest heavy and warm in Rodney’s hand. 

Rodney held on for a moment, waiting for John to drift off completely before he slid off the bed to land in one of the uncomfortable bedside chairs. 

“Carson?” Rodney spoke quietly, “could you have someone arrange for food, please, I want to stay here.”

“I should make you go down to the mess, for your own sake more than anything.” 

Rodney stretched his hand over his eyes, rubbing deeply. “I need to - ” he used the other hand to give an encompassing wave towards John, hoping that Carson would understand.

“Alright, let me see what I can do.” 

“We will go,” Teyla said quietly from behind Rodney and he felt momentarily guilty that he’d forgotten that she and Ronon were even in the room. 

“Thank you,” he said sincerely, quickly clasping her hand when she squeezed his shoulder. 

~*~

“That’s not sleeping,” Rodney murmured when the others had disappeared. He’d looked up to see John’s head turned towards him, watching him silently.

“M’not that tired to be honest, I’m resting.” 

John looked pale and haggard and pretty fucking awful, but all things considered he did seem quite awake. 

“Are you seeing Atlantis?” 

John shook his head slowly, “No. Well, sort of. Sometimes, it sort of flashes in and out.” 

“Huh, and you’re, what? Not in the mood to yell or anything right now?”

“Nope.”

“Okay,” Rodney looked down at his hands, his fingers idly twisting together as he did his best to ignore the way they trembled and the encroaching feeling of sickness in his stomach. 

“You alright, McKay?” 

Rodney laughed sharply, “I’m tired, aching and terrified, surely that just makes it another day in the Pegasus Galaxy.” He blew out a harsh breath and looked at John, pale and wild-eyed and still strapped to the bed, and felt a burn of selfishness in his chest. 

“I’m fine, or at least I will be when you decide to come back here instead of running off into your crazy place every five minutes.”

John had a small grin just tugging the edges of his mouth as he lay there, looking right at Rodney. 

“What?” Rodney snapped. 

“I can see the infirmary, it’s lasting longer each time.” 

“Good, that’s good. We’re all so ready for this to be over.” Rodney stood up shakily and went to lean over John. “I can’t - ” he started, not sure he was able to speak what he needed to say, but John was looking at him with open encouragement. The bastard. 

“I don’t like seeing you like this,” he said matter-of-factly and ignoring the break in his voice. “It’s disturbing, I don’t like it. I need you to get better right away and not stroke out and die on me anytime soon, okay?”

“Rodney - ”

“I’m serious, I won’t - I can’t – Fuck! Why do you have to make everything so difficult?” 

“Me?” John asked, his eyes clear enough to convey exactly what he thought of Rodney’s sanity, never mind his own. 

“Yes, you. You, with your wandering into the lab whenever you feel like it and your complete disregard of personal space and your smell – like burnt wires and hair gel -”

“I smell like burnt wires and hair gel?” 

“Yes, you do and it’s…appealing.” Rodney suddenly ran out of steam and leaned on the edge of John’s bed. “Just, get this out of your system, will you? Without the dying and stuff, I mean.” He couldn’t bring himself to look at John, not even when his quiet voice rasped with Rodney’s name. 

“Hey, come on, Rodney, look at me.” 

Rodney looked up reluctantly. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, his easy words curled around a small smile. “For one I’m still tied to the bed and I’ve no idea where I am.” 

“Don’t joke, okay. Just, don’t.” 

“Sorry.” 

“Are you really no longer seeing the infirmary?” Rodney asked taking John’s fingers between his own and sliding their hands together. 

“It’s flickering again.” 

Rodney nodded and let silence fall between them for a moment, his hands stayed busy, soothing and offering a grounding touch. John sighed and allowed his eyes to close, he was clearly awake as he leaned into the hand Rodney slid through his hair and squeezed Rodney’s hand with the fingers tangled in his grip. 

“Sounds stupid,” John said after a while, “Earlier I was terrified, out of my mind kinda terrified but now – It’s like I’m not sure that I care whether you’re real or not as long as - ”

“I’m real,” Rodney insisted. 

“Okay,” John agreed readily enough and Rodney narrowed his eyes to glare at him.  
“And I’m here.” 

“That, I do know,” John grinned, “I can see you and I can always hear you.” 

Rodney snorted. He looked down at John and felt swept away with a dangerous wave of affection. 

“John,” with the name barely a breath between them he pushed forward and brushed a gentle kiss on dry lips, felt it returned for the briefest moment. He pulled back immediately, sitting up straight and not looking at John as he spent a moment trying to make John’s hair stand up the way it should, rather than flattened by infirmary pillows. 

“I should let you rest. Teyla and Ronon will be back soon and you’re supposed to be asleep.” 

~*~

Rodney had hoped that John’s previous clarity had heralded the end of the drug induced nightmare. He’d hoped but silently he’d known that things were going to get worse before they got better. Kolya wanted John dead and they were forcefully reminded of that fact when John woke up bellowing in the early hours of the morning, shaking like he was being electrocuted and struggling like he was trying to crawl out of his own skin.

Ronon had been on Sheppard Watch, seeing as Carson’s nurses had complained about the three of them hanging around and getting in the way. When Ronon had radioed him Rodney had practically flown from his quarters to the infirmary, only to be told there was nothing he could do and he was not to get in the way. 

They were relegated to standing in the side room listening to the screaming once again, it was unpleasant to say the least. Rodney paced helplessly, Ronon’s glares did nothing to quell his restlessness and somewhere just before dawn he stopped, put his head in his hands and sank to the floor. He didn’t even care about the pain in his knees or the lingering ache in his ribs. 

Carson came in to explain that they’d had to sedate John for his own good but not lose hope because they were closer than ever to finding something that would help him. 

“Would that be before or after he suffers permanent brain damage?” Rodney snapped. 

“We’re doing everything we can, Rodney. Colonel Sheppard has effectively been poisoned by an unknown drug, we have to be certain that anything we administer to him at this point won’t worsen his condition. ”

Rodney just glared then deflated, “I know. Sorry. What about the stuff you gave him earlier? The clozapine, or whatever it was?” 

“Like I said, that wasn’t a cure, just something that would make him a wee bit more lucid for a while. We’re having to approach this like you would to find an anti-toxin, the drug in his bloodstream is more than just a hallucinogenic; it’s a poison. It’s attacking vital systems and slowly breaking them down.”

“This is crazy,” Rodney said quietly, “it’s complete madness. Can we see him?” 

“He’s sleeping right now and I’d prefer he stayed that way but I won’t stop you from going in and saying a very quiet goodnight.” 

“Good morning now technically, isn’t it?” Rodney asked, trying to smile for Carson’s sake, he could see the weight of the situation bearing down on the doctor’s shoulders.

“Aye, I suppose so. Either way, don’t disturb him.” 

Rodney nodded and headed for the door, aware that the others were behind him. He approached John’s bed slowly, shocked to see that he was now hooked up to a ventilator. His features were slack with sleep but the skin stretched over them was pale to the point of being grey. 

Rodney shoved his fist in his mouth and bit the skin at the back of his fingers. John looked like he was dying.

Carson looked back and forth between the two of them. 

“Rodney…” Carson sighed quietly, shaking his head just a little. “Oh, lad - ” he put his hand on Rodney’s shoulder but Rodney pulled away. 

“Not now, Carson, please. Not right now.” 

“I’ll get you a chair, you can sit with him a while, but you’re not to wake him up, you understand?” 

“Yes. Yes, thank you.” 

Rodney sat down in the chair Carson pushed over to him; he sank back gratefully and leaned his head on his fist, just watching John. 

“We shall say goodnight,” Teyla murmured quietly, “unless you wish us to stay?” 

“I don’t not want you to stay,” Rodney said slowly, he wasn’t telling them to go but he didn’t need them to stay. 

“I understand,” Teyla smiled. 

~*~

Rodney sat and looked at John, just watched him lying there, hooked up to various machines, sleeping like the dead. Rodney shuddered. 

What if Kolya was right, what if they were unable to cure John and he died never knowing that he was safe? Rodney’s head spun wildly and he shivered. It was cold in the infirmary, very cold. He put his head down next to John’s hand and closed his eyes. 

There was nothing he could do, nothing. He couldn’t manufacture a cure, he couldn’t keep John alive – there was just nothing. 

Rodney closed his eyes but at that moment sleep proved just as elusive as hope.

Carson sent Rodney away when he arrived the next morning. He complained bitterly but Carson sent him to get something to eat and to sleep in his own bed for a while. John showed no signs of waking so Rodney reluctantly agreed to do as he was told, for once - providing he was allowed to stay and hear how John was before he left. Carson sighed, rolled his eyes but agreed and proceeded to fill him in. Things were not looking good, Carson was worried, Rodney could tell by the way he spoke carefully and tried to avoid answering any questions directly. 

Rodney left the infirmary feeling numb, like a huge dark, empty shadow had climbed inside him and taken up residence in his chest. Maybe in his head too, he thought as he pinballed off another wall on his way to his quarters. 

~*~

Teyla and Ronon were keeping the silent vigil the next time Kolya dialled in. Elizabeth radioed through, asking them to join her in the control room immediately. 

When they arrived it was to see Kolya’s face plastered on their monitors once again. Teyla’s hand moved quietly to Ronon’s arm, pulling him back against her side, next to Elizabeth. 

“Perhaps you’d be kind enough to update me on Colonel Sheppard’s progress?” Kolya said. 

“No, I don’t think so,” Elizabeth answered sharply, her back straight and her head held high as she glared defiantly at the monster before her. 

“In fact, if that’s the only reason you dialled in then we can terminate this conversation right now.” Elizabeth nodded to Chuck and the transmission cut off just as Kolya’s twisted laugh echoed through the room. 

“He’s insane,” Ronon said as silence fell. 

“I believe so, yes,” Teyla said calmly. 

Elizabeth snorted inelegantly as she ran a hand through her hair and down to the taught muscles in her neck, rubbing absently, “you don’t say?” 

“No, I mean seriously insane. Did you see his eyes?” Ronon asked. “That’s not just a man out for vengeance, that guy has totally lost it. That makes him twice as dangerous. If this grudge he has against Sheppard has consumed him like that, if it’s the cause of that madness, he’ll stop at nothing to see him buried.” 

Elizabeth nodded, “I think the way he sees it, Sheppard shot him and left him for dead and although there has always been an element of madness in that man, that’s what drove him over the edge, as it were. What do you suggest we do?” she asked looking from Teyla to Ronon.

“Kill him before he gets the chance to do anything else,” Ronon answered simply. 

“I agree Kolya should be…removed,” Teyla said carefully, “but we do not yet know how things will turn out for Colonel Sheppard. We may yet need information from Kolya.”

“Let me do it,” Ronon growled, “he’ll tell me everything he knows before he dies.” 

Elizabeth looked between the two of them again, obviously weighing her options. The others knew her answer before it even came. 

“Let’s wait, give it at least a couple of days and see what Carson can come up with to help the Colonel.” 

Ronon nodded and Teyla inclined her head slowly, reluctantly willing to wait. For now. 

~*~

Rodney hadn’t slept for long, a couple of hours at most before he was stumbling back to the infirmary to see John. 

When he got there a nurse was working with him, moving his legs and his arms with very precise movements. John was still unresponsive, his face was pale and unmoving, a tube stuck down his throat, wires stuck to his chest. 

Rodney practically fell into his chair. 

“Is this the, umm, physical therapy that Beckett mentioned?” 

“Yes, this helps the circulation, helps blood flow to his brain,” she answered, she spared him a quick glance but her focus was on John. 

“From his feet?” Rodney asked as she worked the left foot. 

“Yes, Dr McKay, from his feet.” She smiled at him and Rodney suddenly felt quite ashamed that he didn’t know her name. She was quite pretty in a clinical kind of way, simple features, blonde hair pulled back into a neat bun and arms that looked like they could snap you in half for your own good. 

“If you want to help you could pick up his hand,” she offered, slightly unsure of herself.

Rodney grabbed John’s hand and held it up, she showed him how to manipulate John’s fingers and massage his palm. Rodney concentrated on every tiny movement he made, he could do this and it would help John. His world focused in to those hands and little else. He felt the warmth of skin coming alive, the calluses rubbed by years of carrying weapons, the pull of muscles and the unyielding bone under his touch. 

He’d just moved to work on the other hand when Carson came flying in. 

“I think I’ve got it, I think I’ve bloody well got it.” 

“Got what, Carson? What do you have?” Rodney asked desperately, his heart hammering in his chest, kicking him back to life.

“We analysed the various blood samples we took from Colonel Sheppard, the ones from when he first came back through the ‘gate, the ones we took when he first fell ill and the ones we’ve taken since- ”

“Yes, yes – and?” Rodney prompted. 

“Well, we were able to isolate the poison in the drug as well as the hallucinogen and come up with a solution that will attack both simultaneously and break them down to harmless matter that his body will process and then dispose of.”

Carson looked so pleased with himself that Rodney was torn between elation and dread. 

“Where’s the ‘but’, Carson? There’s always a ‘but’, something has to be unreachable or undoable or the side effects will leave him brain damaged or something – it’s never that simple.”

“It is,” Carson moved beside him, “it is, lad, I promise. This time it’s just that simple. That bastard Kolya underestimated our medical expertise and I have a feeling he’ll truly regret that the next time he sees Colonel Sheppard.”

“He’s going to regret it the next time he sees me,” Rodney muttered. “Are you certain, certain this will work?” 

“Yes,” Carson answered, smiling broadly. “I’m certain. I’ve left Dr. Stearn concocting the antidote, as it were. I’m as certain as I can be in these circumstances that this is going to work. I must go and let Elizabeth know, she’s been holed up in her office since Kolya called again -”

“Wait - Kolya dialed in again?” Rodney asked. 

“A couple of hours ago, said he just wanted to check on Colonel Sheppard’s condition. You know, it takes a lot for me to genuinely dislike a man, but I can honestly say I wouldn’t bother to spit on that man if he was burning - ”

“A couple of hours ago?” Rodney interrupted again. 

“Aye.” 

“Why wasn’t I informed?” 

“You were asleep, Rodney.” 

“I get woken up and called out if a light flickers around here but you didn’t think it was important that I be woken up when the man who is trying to murder Colonel Sheppard dials in for a chat?” 

“Now don’t be like that Rodney, he was just taunting us, there was no need for you to be there,” Carson explained.

“No need for me to – you are all idiots. Go and tell Elizabeth that you’ve had a modicum of success with your voodoo - ”

“Rodney,” Carson admonished carefully, “you needed sleep far more than you needed the added stress. It was best this way.” 

“Mmm, yes, I’m sure you’re right.” Rodney turned his attention back to massaging John’s hands, effectively ending the conversation and waited for Beckett to leave. 

He didn’t have to wait long. 

~*~

Rodney had been kicked out of the infirmary while the antidote was being administered and was now wandering the halls, he’d shown his face in the labs, swung by the mess and grabbed coffee, made sure he’d been seen around so that people wouldn’t think to look for him. He didn’t want to be disturbed as he made his way to the transporter then on to one of the more remote parts of the city. He walked through empty corridors, quiet and dim and intimidating.  
Two marines were stationed outside the door at the end of the corridor, they simply nodded to him as he walked past them, not daring to question his presence. 

Inside the room Haemon was lying on the floor of one of the cells. Rodney paced around the bars, looking at him. Haemon didn’t say anything, just looked back. 

Rodney sighed. 

“Get up,” he ordered quietly. 

“Why?” Haemon asked, his voice bored. 

“Because I want to talk to you,” Rodney answered. 

“And you can’t do that with me down here?”

“I suppose I can. You have a perfectly good cot there, you know?” Rodney said, tilting his chin at the small bed in the corner. 

“Yes, I sleep on it.” 

“Fine. Whatever. Where’s Kolya?” 

“Sheppard dead yet?” Haemon asked by way of response. 

“No. Where’s Kolya?” 

“I can’t tell you that, not until Sheppard’s dead then I’ll take you to see him if you like?” 

“You’ll take me to see him? I don’t think so.” 

“Fine, I’ll tell you where he is and you can drop me off on some friendly planet in the vicinity.” 

“How about you tell me where he is or I’ll just have the Marines shoot you?”  
There was no way Haemon could know that Rodney was bluffing. Except that the entire galaxy knew he was an incredibly bad liar. Rodney really wanted to know where Kolya was, he wasn’t a hundred percent sure what he would do with the information once he got it but he had to know. He kept having curiously appealing thoughts of walking up to Kolya and calmly putting a gun to his head. Each time he entertained the thought a hot fury welled up inside him and he longed to do it. Quite frankly, the whole thing terrified him.

“The problem is,” Haemon sighed, “I have nothing left to lose. When Kolya recovered from the bullet your Colonel Sheppard put in him, he blamed me for the failure of the mission. I had a very simple choice either agree to this mission or death.” 

“And what is the extent of your ‘mission’, hmm?” 

“Quite simple, I deliver the message of your whereabouts, wait through the rescue and Sheppard’s deterioration, once I have news of his death then I tell you where Kolya is.” 

“Then what?” Rodney sneered, “then we just let you move on – oh, off you go, asshole, you’re free? So long and thanks for all the info? Is that what you think is going to happen?”

“A life behind bars has to be better than no life at all.” 

“And what if we just throw you back to Kolya?” 

“Then he’ll probably kill me,” Haemon stated quietly. 

“Ask me if I care,” Rodney snapped. 

Haemon smiled but there was no joy in it at all, “I really don’t need to.” 

“You’re wasting my time. Where is he?” 

“Come back when Sheppard’s dead.” 

“Where is he?” Rodney shouted. 

Haemon just closed his eyes and turned his face away. 

“Son of a - ” Rodney’s radio clicked, cutting him off. “I’m here,” he answered. “Is he okay? Oh god, I’m on my way.”

Rodney saw the smug grin pull with twisted satisfaction over Haemon’s face. 

“Better hurry,” the man on the floor murmured. 

“You have no idea,” Rodney said as he rushed from the room, heading for the infirmary. 

~*~

When Rodney arrived at the infirmary John was awake, he wasn’t exactly lucid but his eyes were open and he wasn’t screaming or twisting with pain. Rodney rushed over to the bed, looked down at him and pressed his fingers against the warm skin of John’s arm. 

“Rodney,” John’s voice was barely audible. 

“Hey, how are you feeling?” 

“Peachy.” 

Rodney rolled his eyes. “What are you seeing?” 

“I can see you, I can see the infirmary -”

“No crazy visions?” 

“Not at the moment. M’head hurts like hell though,” John muttered just as Carson came over. 

“I see you’ve found him awake.” 

“It’s working?” Rodney asked, “the potion you cooked up is working?” 

“Yes, Rodney. As you can see, it’s making excellent progress already. We injected him just over two hours ago, he’s certainly not out of the woods but it’s looking good.” 

“Oh, thank god,” Rodney sighed. “It’s working,” he said to John, relief clear in his voice. “You’re going to be fine, John, it’s working.” Rodney didn’t get much of a response just a slow, tired nod but he didn’t care because that beat the screaming any day. 

“You only have a moment alone,” Carson said, “I called the others, they’re on their way. A minute or so at the most.” He pulled the privacy curtain around them and walked away. 

Rodney didn’t waste a moment, he leaned in and kissed John quickly, kissed his lips and his eyes and back to his lips, each one punctuated with a soft ‘thank god.’ 

“M’fine,” John insisted quietly. 

Rodney was saved from smacking him around the head by the sound of voices. He pulled back and opened the curtain just as Teyla, Ronon and Elizabeth made their approach.

They each, in their own way, took a turn in welcoming John back to the land of the relatively sane. Rodney hovered with Carson and waited until he’d be able to take his chair next to John’s bed. 

“Kolya d’this?” John asked him when Rodney finally sat down, a apprehensive hush fell over the area. 

Rodney nodded, “he seemed to think the stuff he used was untreatable and that it would effectively scramble your brain and kill you. It came close, too close if you ask me but Carson eventually managed to develop a drug that would counteract the effects.”

“How’d Kolya do it?” 

“The blades that you cut yourself on when you released me, they were coated in the poison.” 

“Tha’s stupid,” John mumbled. 

“Fortunately for us so is Kolya, even more fortunately for us Carson isn’t.”

“Why thank you, Rodney, that was almost a compliment,” Carson butted in. 

“We still have Kolya’s lackey down in the cells,” Rodney said, ignoring Carson, “I went to speak to him - ”

There was a general outburst of admonishment that Rodney ignored. 

“I asked him where Kolya was,” he continued talking to John and ignoring the others, “he wouldn’t tell me anything. Said his orders were to only reveal Kolya’s whereabouts after you - ” Rodney stopped himself then stuck his chin out in determination, “after you died – but that’s not going to happen.” 

“You spoke to him?” John asked. 

“Yes.” 

“Alone?” 

“There were marines outside the door and he was in a cell, alone wasn’t a problem.” 

John shook his head and tried to roll his eyes. 

“You say he wouldn’t tell you anything?” Ronon spoke up from behind Teyla. 

“Not anything useful but then Carson called me, I wasn’t in there long.” 

“Does he know you got called out to come down here?” Ronon asked. 

“Umm, yes. Why – wait, you’re thinking we should tell him what he wants to hear, tell him that Sheppard’s dead?” Rodney asked quietly. 

Ronon nodded, “we get Kolya’s location and kill the hell out of him.” 

Rodney looked down at John, saw the brief nod, the agreement in his eyes. 

“Okay,” Rodney said shakily, “okay, but we don’t talk to him until tomorrow at the earliest. I need time to work up to this.” 

“Rodney, if you are uncomfortable with the idea, I will go in and speak to Haemon,” Teyla offered. 

“No, no. It should be me,” Rodney answered, his eyes never leaving John’s. “Besides,” he added, “I won an award for my drama.” 

Within an hour or so John had drifted off to sleep and Carson had insisted they leave. Rodney couldn’t find the energy to drag himself from the chair and instead just sat there as the others said their goodbyes.

Carson had given him the glare that said ‘five minutes then you go too’ so Rodney stayed and stretched out a hand to touch John’s hair, pushed his fingers through the dark strands just above his ear and sighed. This was not going to be easy. Carson kept reminding them that John was going to need more than just a day to recover from the drug in his system – which hadn’t totally cleared yet. Yes, there was improvement, vast improvement, but it didn’t mean he was ready to go running around on missions and Rodney could just imagine John’s reaction if they tried to go without him. 

John was still frighteningly pale, Rodney noted as he let his fingers trace over the stubbled jaw line and down his neck. He huffed a breath of humorless laughter, this could only happen to them – kidnapping, poisoning, all after the most mind blowing sex. Yeah, only them.

~*~

Rodney spent most of the following day with John, pretending not to hover over him as Carson let him move small distances unassisted, monitored his vitals and watched him eat and drink. John was still weak but the improvement was vast, his strength visibly returning as the hours passed. Three days, John had only been out of it for three days; to Rodney, it had seemed like a lifetime. 

Rodney was building up to visiting Haemon again. Elizabeth had agreed that he would go back the following morning and report that John had died during the night. The more time they allowed for Sheppard to heal, the better. They all knew that ‘Operation Kill the Hell out of Kolya’ wasn’t going to go ahead without him, even if Elizabeth had already made it perfectly clear that John wouldn’t be running the Op and would have minimum involvement, under her orders. John hadn’t liked it but had reluctantly acquiesced. 

They had finally agreed that Rodney would go in and break the news to Haemon, get the location of Kolya’s newest hideout and they would move out soon after. Carson was reluctant to release John at all, let alone straight into the field but after an argument and a stunning display of stubbornness that proved that John was almost back to his old self, Carson had been left with little option other than to allow it. 

Lorne and Teyla would be running the Op, leading two teams of marines plus John, Ronon and, after a display of stubbornness all of his own, Rodney. If you asked Elizabeth, the mission brief was ridiculously complex and sanctioned ‘information gathering and security risk assessing with appropriate and proportionate response to arising situations.’ If you asked any of the men actually going on the mission the brief was a simple as the Op name. 

~*~

Rodney walked through the dim corridors on the far side of the city, Ronon just a few steps behind him. He nodded to the men on guard as he passed and stopped just outside the door. 

“McKay?” Ronon murmured from behind him. 

“Just give me a second.” 

“You don’t have to do this.” 

“I really do. Wait out here, I shouldn’t be too long,” Rodney said, carefully not looking at him.

“No way. I’m coming in.” 

“Wait here,” Rodney snapped, “you can watch the show from the security monitors and you’ll know if I need help, other wise, stay out here.” 

“McKay - ”

 

“It’ll be fine,” Rodney finally turned and looked at Ronon, he was visibly tense and obviously not keen on the idea but he nodded and turned to watch the monitor at the guard station. 

Rodney took a second to think of John and how close they’d come to - fury built quickly as his mind treacherously supplied an unwanted image of John lying in the infirmary, so cold and unmoving - dead. He let the momentum of anger carry him forward into the small room. 

Haemon was lying on the floor of his cell when Rodney stumbled in and palmed the lock to the holding area. Haemon looked up at him with an air of smugness and a grin that Rodney hated him for. 

“So, Sheppard dead yet?” 

Rodney just nodded, honest to god nausea settling tight into his stomach and stealing his words. 

“Yeah, when?” Haemon asked. 

“During the night,” Rodney croaked, “he stroked out, his – his heart failed and he -” Rodney breathed heavily through his nose, he couldn’t say it, he couldn’t even bring himself to say it. 

“He died?” Haemon supplied helpfully. 

Rodney nodded again. “Where’s Kolya?” he asked, taking another breath. 

Haemon looked up at him, assessing him, studying him. It made Rodney’s skin crawl but whatever he saw obviously made him believe John was dead. Score one to drama class. 

“Let me out of here, I’ll take you to him.” 

“Tell me where he is and we’ll think about letting you out of here once he’s dead.”

“You’ll think about it?” 

“Yes, we’ll think about it. Where is he?” 

Haemon pushed himself up onto his elbows and then sat up, languid indifference settled across his face with practiced ease. He looked at Rodney for a long moment, long enough to make Rodney twitch where he stood. 

“Okay,” Haemon sniffed, “I’ll give you the ‘gate address.” 

Haemon hadn’t asked for any kind of proof that John was dead, nothing concrete – he obviously didn’t care either way and believed that Kolya would be less of a threat if he was dead by Lantean hands. Rodney wasn’t sure whether he found that reassuring or utterly terrifying. 

~*~

Rodney left the cell and made his way down the corridor towards the transporter, the ‘gate address burned into his memory, Ronon once again falling in a few steps behind him, not bugging him, just silently waiting for any information to be offered. Before they reached the transporter the doors slid open and John stepped out, heading towards them. 

“What are you doing out of the infirmary?” Rodney snapped, grasping John by the elbow and hauling back towards the doors he’d just stepped through. 

“Doc let me out. I was only out of it for three days, Rodney, I’m fine. Did you get an address?” 

“Three and a half. Carson knows you’re here?” Rodney asked, scepticism clearly definable in his voice. 

“Well, not here exactly, but he knows I’m out, he just said to take it easy today. Seriously, I’m fine. Address?” 

Rodney snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’ve got it.” 

“When do we move out?” Ronon asked, stepping up beside Rodney. 

“Tomorrow, I think,” John said, pressing the pad of his thumb against his lower lip, probably already planning the trip through the ‘gate. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Rodney asked, far too casually, “ shouldn’t you stay here?” 

“No,” John snapped, clearly not impressed. “Doc’s released me, were you listening at all?” 

“Released you, yes. Cleared you for duty, that’s another thing entirely.” 

“He cleared me.” 

“Only because you bullied him into it - ” Rodney objected. 

“I’m going Rodney, you know damn well I am.” 

“I don’t like it.” 

“I don’t care,” John snapped. 

“Give it up, McKay,” Ronon murmured, half amused, “you’re not going to win this one.” 

“I see,” Rodney said coldly, if John felt it was necessary to go running round throwing himself in harms way just after Rodney had nearly lost him, then who the hell was he to stop him? Why the hell should he care? Suddenly needing to be anywhere but next to John, Rodney stepped away from them and backed into the transporter. 

“McKay, wait up - ” John called just as Rodney closed the door and hit the button for the control tower. 

~*~

By the time Rodney had finished debriefing with Elizabeth, Teyla and Lorne, giving them the address and learning a little more about Teyla’s plan for the following day, he was tired and really not in the mood for any kind of company.

Elizabeth had stressed over and over again that no one was to do anything irrational, Lorne was to keep the military contingent in check, it was strictly information gathering. They needed to know the set up of Kolya’s new army and what sort of supplies and munitions they had, what sort of information and intelligence his men had or had access to. 

Rodney could feel a quiet fury building within him as he walked away from the briefing, heading back to his quarters. Kolya had nearly succeeded in killing John and they were going on an intelligence-gathering mission? No matter which way the scenario played in his head, he couldn’t imagine walking back through the ‘gate having allowed Kolya to live. The very thought terrified him; such anger, such a need for vengeance had been alien to him once. The thing was, this wasn’t something that had been done to him, this was something that they’d done to John and that was just…unacceptable. 

Rodney palmed open the door to his quarters and found John sitting on his bed, elbows resting on his knees and staring silently down at his hands. 

“John?” 

John wouldn’t look at him, just sat there, unmoving. 

“You okay?” Rodney asked quietly, moving forward, hovering uncomfortably beside him before giving up and sitting down next to him, shoulder to shoulder. The silence stretched between them, anticipatory, loaded with words begging to be spoken. Rodney could feel John wanting to speak, wanting to voice whatever it was that was hiding behind his eyes. It was deafening as neither of them spoke, neither of them moved. 

Finally, Rodney sighed and, in a move he had no idea he was making until it was made, he reached forward and grabbed one of John’s hands. He uncurled it and filled it with his own, laced their fingers together and squeezed until his nails must have been digging into the back of John’s hand. John made a sound that was almost a whine and turned to find Rodney’s mouth and covered it with his own. He kissed hard and hot and with a desperation Rodney found way too easy to match. 

“Oh god, Rodney, I’d almost – I think I’d almost convinced myself that this wasn’t real.” 

“What?” 

John kissed him again, moving clumsily against him, Rodney went with it, pulling John onto the bed and pushing him down against the mattress. 

“Everything was so messed up,” John whispered, looking up at him between kisses, “when I got out of the infirmary I started to doubt that we’d ever done this -”

“We did, we are,” Rodney said forcefully, not wanting John to doubt it even for a second. 

“Thank god,” John panted, kissing him over and over again, “it felt like losing you, the thought that I’d imagined this – it felt like losing - ”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Rodney said, no longer able to take the roughness of John’s voice, the rawness in his eyes. “Shut up and fuck me, already.” 

John let out a small cry and thrust up against Rodney before rolling them over so that Rodney was sprawled out beneath him. 

Rodney wound his hands into John’s hair and kissed him again and again as John did his best to undress them and not break the kisses. Impatience won out in the end and John stood up and shucked off everything he was still wearing before helping Rodney out. 

“Undressed, Rodney, come on,” he encouraged as a tee shirt went flying carelessly over his head, “I need you naked.” 

Rodney had never been stripped so efficiently in his life and was glad of it when John lay back down on top of him, hot glorious skin pressed along his body, warm breath on his face. Rodney was barely aware of John’s hand distractedly rummaging through the drawer nearest the bed, he was too busy running his hands over strong shoulders and a long back, feeding on the life and heat of the skin beneath his fingers. 

John made a triumphant sound and removed his hand from the drawer, clutching a bottle of lube. Rodney surged up and kissed him deeply before twisting around and lying on his front, John kneeling between his legs. 

John’s heavy cock was already pressed against his ass and Rodney couldn’t help but push back against it. 

“Patience,” John whispered, leaning over him to kiss the back of his shoulders, his neck. “Patience, not gonna hurt you.” 

Rodney whimpered and moved again, “please, fuck, John, please.”

John pulled Rodney up onto his hands and knees and gently teased him open, fingers working their way inside, slowly, too slowly. Rodney began a quiet litany of nonsense, just pleading and John’s name over and over again as skilful fingers stretched him open. 

“Now, please, just fuck me, now,” and he whimpered as the fingers were removed and John’s cock pushed against him. As soon as John was inside, Rodney rocked back, taking him all the way in and feeling it burn, like he was being ripped in two, he sat back on John’s thighs, his cock buried deep in Rodney’s ass. He cried out loudly and John grabbed him, arms wrapped tightly around his chest. 

“Damn it, Rodney. Fuck,” John shouted, holding him still. 

“S’good,” Rodney moaned, letting his head fall back against John’s shoulder, exposing his neck. “S’good to feel you in me.” 

“Idiot,” John cursed him, kissing his way up Rodney’s neck. One of John’s hands loosened its hold from round his chest and slid up to wrap around his throat. Strong hands that could easily crush the life out of him ran up and down the fragile skin of Rodney’s neck, sliding protectively around such a vulnerable point as John began to thrust up, fucking Rodney slowly. 

“John, John,” Rodney panted as John’s hand stayed closed around his throat and the other one taking his cock, working him with a tight fist. 

John pushed deeper, his movements became more frantic and Rodney thought this was probably the closest he’d ever be to feeling what John had over the last three days. Surely he was as lost as it was possible for a man to get, as the sensations overwhelmed him and all he could feel was John as his world narrowed and was consumed by everything that was John at that moment. 

Shit, Rodney was sure those were stars he could see as John cried out and came inside him, flooding him with hot come and pushing Rodney over the edge. 

Rodney drifted for a while, comfortable and sated and aware of little else, John’s voice had been soft and warm in his ear as he’d pulled out and moved him around carefully until he was settled on the bed. Rodney smiled to himself and rolled over reaching for John but he was alone. Rodney blinked. 

He was alone. Shit. 

“John?” he shouted, terrified all of a sudden. 

John came skidding out of the bathroom, looking frantic. “What?” 

Rodney put his hands over his eyes, “nothing, sorry, nothing. What are you doing?” 

“Towel," John said, waving wet cloth at him. "You okay there, buddy?” 

Rodney could hear the smirk in his voice, the bastard. 

“Me? Oh, I’m fine, don’t mind me and my complete mental collapse,” he pressed a hand over his eyes and tried to steady his breathing, “maybe Carson could inject me with whatever the hell it was he gave you.”

John threw the towel at him but Rodney left it where it landed, warm and heavy on his stomach. John sighed and came and lifted it off, he also peeled Rodney’s hands away from his eyes and kissed him. 

“I was only in the bathroom,” he said, entirely too reasonably, reaching over and cleaning Rodney off with the wet towel. 

“I know that,” Rodney said quietly. “Are you still feeling okay?” he asked, sitting up and lifting his hand to cup John’s cheek, as if checking him closely. 

“I’m fine,” John nodded, “I went running with Ronon this afternoon while I was freaking out over stuff and I wasn’t any further behind him than I usually am. Seriously, that guy has thigh muscles like I’ve never seen before, I guess running for seven years will do that for you.” 

“Are you seriously talking to me about Ronon’s thighs while we’re naked on my bed?” Rodney asked peevishly. 

John grinned, “they’re good thighs.” 

“Great,” Rodney bit out, “good for him.” What concern of his was it if John wanted to check out other people? He lay back down and stared at the ceiling, not liking the acid heat that was swirling low in his stomach. 

Before Rodney could stop him, John had pulled back the blanket and laid his head just above Rodney’s knee. 

“Ronon may have good thighs,” he murmured, kissing the inside of Rodney’s knee and working his way up, “and I appreciate good things, I’m only human after all, but they’re not these thighs, I love these thighs more than any others.” 

John lifted his head and grinned up at him, Rodney couldn’t help the faltering smile that played traitorously across his face. 

“And this cock,” John carried on, working his way up Rodney’s body with small peppering kisses. “I love this belly button,” his tongue dipped inside before pulling back to trace wet trailing patterns across Rodney’s stomach. “I love your chest, too,” he whispered moving up further again. 

Rodney put a hand on John's cheek and tilted his head up to look at him, “are you being crazy again?” 

“Nope,” John whispered, “never felt more sane in my life. I love your hands,” he turned his head in Rodney’s grip and kissed the warm palm of his hand. 

Rodney let his thumb skim lightly over John’s smile. 

“I love your mouth,” John kissed him soundly, “god, I really love your mouth and your nose and your eyes.” 

There seemed to be no air left in Rodney’s lungs and his breath hitched as John skimmed his cheek over Rodney’s, lips trailing over his jaw and his nose before pulling away slightly to look down at him, so close they were sharing each breath. 

“I…” John’s voice gave out on him as he just looked at Rodney, doubt creeping into his eyes as he tried to say the words that were just not going to come. 

“Yeah,” Rodney rescued him, with a small laugh, “yeah, me too.” 

John blew out a breath and ducked his head, “glad you get it.” 

“You’re an idiot, you know that?” 

John nodded. 

“You can tell me you love every part of my body and grope me with abandon while we’re sprawled naked across the bed but you can’t say that you…you know…whatever…me.” 

John looked at him, raising an eyebrow with a smirk. “That I ‘you know, whatever’ you?”

Rodney nodded and John laughed. “Okay, sure, okay.” 

Rodney slid his hand into John’s hair as his head came to rest on Rodney’s chest, the other hand wrapped around his shoulders and pulled him in tight, sleepily taking possession of the man in his arms. 

Rodney thought the lights off and let himself drift towards sleep, soothed and reassured by John’s warmth and presence.

“Rodney?” John whispered quietly, long drowsy minutes later.

“Mmm?” 

“I ‘you know, whatever’ you,” he whispered and Rodney could hear the smile in his words. A soft laugh tugged at his chest and Rodney grinned. 

“Yeah, I ‘you know, whatever’ you too.” 

~*~

John stood in front of the ‘gate, shoulder to shoulder with Rodney; Ronon and Teyla standing just in front of them and Lorne and Marines to their right. Elizabeth was addressing them but John didn’t hear a thing. Rodney had woken up in the middle of the night, shaking like a leaf and reaching desperately for John. He hadn’t said a word just buried his face against John’s neck and breathed long and hard until he was back under control and drifting off to sleep. John didn’t have to be psychic to work out what was going through Rodney’s head, the mind reading skills also weren’t necessary to see the flash of terrified fury that passed through Rodney’s eyes every time someone mentioned Kolya’s name. 

John pushed his elbow subtly into Rodney’s side. “You okay?” 

“Fine. I think I’m actually looking forward to this.” 

John noticed, with a sort of bleak pride, that Rodney’s voice was rock steady – as were his hands as he unclipped his 9mil. and checked it before smoothly sliding it back into his thigh holster. 

John didn’t have time to say anything further, the order to dial the ‘gate had been given and Atlantis filled with the silence of anger and the thundering of a dialling ‘gate. 

~*~

Rodney could tell John already wanted to argue with Lorne and Teyla when they moved into formation – Lorne and his men were taking point, Ronon and Teyla were covering their six and John and Rodney were tucked neatly in the middle. 

Lorne just tipped his head and said, “sorry sir, but I’m under orders.” 

“Elizabeth ordered you to baby-sit me?” John spluttered. 

“No, sir - ”

“You gave me command of this mission, John,” Teyla said warningly, “do not contradict me now.” 

“You gave these orders?” John asked, turning to her. 

“Yes, I positioned the men as I saw fit. You could always return through the stargate if you do not agree with me.” 

“Well, when you put it that way…” John stepped back into his assigned position looking half disgusted, half admiringly at Teyla. 

“Good call,” Rodney whispered when they started moving, “she could totally kick your ass.” 

“I know,” John sighed. 

The planet had turned out to be pretty much exactly what Rodney had been expecting, Kolya’s personal tastes obviously never ran to anything more glamorous than a planet thick with evergreens, dull grey rocks and a constant drizzling rain. 

Apprehension buzzed through Rodney like living static, he couldn’t get it out of his head. Kolya. He was going to see Kolya die, the man couldn’t possibly be allowed to live after everything he’d done. Rodney looked over at John walking beside him, silent for the most part, but alive and healthy in a way Rodney had feared he’d never see him again. Every time Rodney looked at him and breathed a sigh of relief, anger filtered through that apprehension and stole his breath once again. 

A building came into view, it appeared to be all one level, squat and wide spread across the overgrown ground but Rodney would lay ten to one odds on there being a number of sub-levels that they couldn’t see yet. Rodney fell into formation and entered the facility as a soldier; body flush to the wall, weapon held high and ready. 

The life signs detectors were giving them very little which meant they were either in completely the wrong place or the lower levels were shielded somehow. They moved through the ground level, grouping off as Lorne silently instructed with hand signals that Rodney hadn’t even realized he’d learned the meaning of. 

A couple of the Marines opened a door and found a stairwell spiraling down to the sub-levels. Rodney rolled his eyes and met Sheppard’s amused grin, ‘knew it’ he mouthed and John nodded. 

Lorne’s men went first, moving so silently that Rodney struggled to hear them even though he was standing at the top of the stairs. They fanned out and checked every room on that level. Lorne had quietly disposed of a mobile patrol dressed in old Genii Military uniform, which had been marching down one of the corridors. They regrouped at the stairwell and went down again, this time as deep as the steps went, to what appeared to be the lowest level.

It opened out into a visibly larger area, passageways going endlessly to their left and right and straight ahead, lined with unremarkable doorways. Rodney rubbed a trickle of cold sweat out of his eyes as he blindly followed John through the maze of corridors and rooms, searching each one, aware of the men around them and trying to memorize the layout as quickly as possible. 

They pushed the door open into another empty room, entering silently and checking each corner to safely declare it clear. Some papers on an abandoned desk had momentarily distracted Rodney when gunfire echoed throughout the base. P90 fire, Earth-issue 9mils and something else, something that sounded a bit like a shotgun but fired too rapidly, not anything of theirs. John swore and moved to the door, checking the hallway. There was shouting and the distinctive whine-thump of Ronon’s blaster fire and then they were heading out the door. 

“Stay behind me and shoot any one who isn’t one of ours,” John ordered as they moved towards the gunfire. 

Rodney turned to check behind them just as a figure hurriedly crossed the far end of the corridor, obviously intent on getting away from the fight they were about to enter. 

Rodney stopped but no one else moved across, just the one man. 

“Sheppard,” Rodney called to tell him but Sheppard was rounding the corner and already firing, “Sheppard!” 

Rodney winced and looked back to the end of the corridor, he should go and check it out. What if Kolya was down there making his escape? They’d lose him, they’d have no way of finding him then and the bastard would be free to continue his campaign to rid the galaxy of Sheppard. Rodney groaned and took a couple of steps, he paused and, with only slightly trembling fingers, checked his weapon. Satisfied, he took one more look in the direction John had gone before taking a breath and heading the opposite way. 

At the end of the corridor he turned right and headed in the same direction as the man he’d seen, carefully he looked through each of the tiny porthole windows as he passed door after door. His heart was hammering its way up into his throat as he checked each room and kept moving. He came to another turn in the corridor and pressed himself flat against the wall, he could hear voices. One was sickeningly familiar as it barked out orders to pack up and move out.

“If they’re here then Sheppard is dead and I want to make sure I’m there to meet them. Hurry up, you fool.” 

Rodney held his breath as he listened to Kolya demanding that equipment, weapons and men be moved quickly. Rodney checked the corridor behind him but he was alone – it would be madness to go in there now, god only knew how many men were in there with Kolya, could be two or twenty, either way he was outnumbered and the odds were against him. He should go back, tell the others where Kolya was; come back with reinforcements. 

“Hurry up,” Kolya bellowed just as Rodney had made up his mind to get back to John, “we have to be ready for the next phase.” 

Rodney froze. The next phase? There was more, Kolya in all his arrogance was convinced he had killed John but there was still more to come, more to inflict on the people Rodney cared about. Something inside him snapped. Every moment he’d spent tied and beaten and held prisoner by this man, every second he’d spent sat by John’s bedside terrified out of his mind, every ounce of blinding fury he’d felt for Kolya welled up inside him and Rodney drew his 9mil. high in front of him and stormed into the room.

Kolya was right ahead of him and Rodney took advantage of the momentary element of surprise to walk straight up to him and push the barrel of his gun right against Kolya’s head. 

Rodney’s breath came hard and fast, stuttering in his chest, fear and anger, and his heart rocketing against his ribcage. 

“You bastard,” he ground out between tightly gritted teeth. 

“My dear Doctor McKay,” Kolya said, as if he didn’t have a gun pressed right between his hollow fucking eyes. “I take it Colonel Sheppard died on schedule? How have the last couple of days been for you?”

“You have no idea – the damage you’ve done, the things you’ve set in motion – you have no idea, Kolya,” Rodney spat. 

Kolya laughed, a mirthless, empty sound and Rodney pushed the gun harder against his head. 

“Such devastation on your face,” Kolya murmured, his voice as soft as Rodney had ever heard it, sickness churned low in Rodney’s stomach. “Are you going to shoot me Doctor McKay?”

Rodney didn’t answer, just swallowed hard and willed his hands to stop shaking as he asked himself the same question.

He looked right into Kolya’s eyes and cocked the trigger. 

“Perhaps I underestimated you, Doctor,” Kolya said quietly, “no matter. You could certainly try and kill me but I assure you, you’d be dead before you had time to pull the trigger.” 

One of Kolya’s men stepped forward and pressed his gun to Rodney’s neck. 

“But maybe,” Kolya continued, his eyes alight with a new manic fervour when Rodney didn’t back down but held his ground, “maybe you no longer care?” 

“Maybe I don’t,” Rodney said quietly, steadily – and for the first time since Rodney had entered the room, Kolya looked scared. He wasn’t the only one. 

“McKay!” 

Before Rodney could register what was happening, John was in the room, shots were fired and three of Kolya’s men were dead on the floor. Including the one that had been holding a gun to his throat. Rodney’s own gun was still pointed steadily at Kolya’s head. 

“Rodney, this was not part of the plan,” John said calmly, taking a step towards him, like he was some feral animal that might get spooked and run away.

“I know,” Rodney said shakily, his knees felt weak, his chest was pounding wildly, everything was spinning out of control suddenly. He was coming apart in a million different directions – just add John Sheppard for instant chaos. He laughed rather inappropriately and John took a step closer. 

“Come on, buddy. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to go down.” 

Kolya was spluttering and backing away towards the far wall, Rodney wanted to follow him but he couldn’t bring himself to move away from John. 

“Sheppard?” Kolya was babbling, “Sheppard? But you’re dead, you’re supposed to be dead – do you not know how sick I am of your face?” 

Rodney was pretty sure a grown man shouldn’t be screaming like that. 

“Says the guy whose face could crash fighter jets,” John muttered, reaching a hand out towards Rodney who was still busy flying apart at the seams, thank you very much. He’d been doing fine until John arrived and just the sound of his voice had been enough to unravel Rodney and leave him tangled in the atmosphere. And wow did that make very little sense, Rodney thought stupidly

“But if you’re alive,” Kolya choked, “why would McKay not care if he was shot?” 

Rodney snorted, “I care very much, I just knew he was coming.” He finally took his eyes off Kolya to look at Sheppard - not his brightest move ever. 

Kolya leapt for the gun, grabbing Rodney’s wrist, twisting him round and snapping his arm in one movement. Rodney screamed and the gun fell to the ground. Sheppard was shouting as Rodney and Kolya both went down after it, Rodney was able to topple Kolya when he crashed gracelessly to the floor and both of them missed the gun. Rodney was all too aware that the tangle of limbs meant no safe shot for Sheppard who was frantically yelling at Rodney to get clear. He would have been perfectly happy to do that but that would leave Kolya free to get the gun and arming a seriously pissed psychopath who was intent on killing John didn’t seem like a good plan to him. 

Rodney tried to do as much damage as possible with his heavily booted feet as he reached for the gun with his good arm. Kolya roared as Rodney’s kicks impacted on his ribs and he grabbed for Rodney’s broken arm. He snagged the sleeve and pulled, Rodney screamed and tried to curl away but Kolya had managed to get a grip and pushed him back against the stone floor, huge hands wrapped around Rodney’s neck.  
Rodney could hear John yelling his name, could feel the cold metal of the gun at his fingertips as his good hand scrabbled to get purchase on the handle. He couldn’t fucking breathe as Kolya choked the life out of him, snarling with satisfaction, his face inches from Rodney’s as his madness almost claimed them both. 

Rodney’s fingers closed their grip and he had the gun. Yes, he fucking had it. He brought it up and pressed it clumsily against Kolya’s ribs just as John’s gun found Kolya’s head and they both pulled the trigger. 

The shots rang simultaneously; Rodney turned his head towards John and squeezed his eyes closed as silence fell as heavily as the gunfire. 

Kolya’s dead body listed and slumped to the floor and then John’s hands were on Rodney, pulling him away, pulling him free of the dead weight, dragging him frantically towards the door. 

“Are you alright? Rodney? Talk to me here, buddy, how badly are you hurt?”

He was pushed against a wall, legs splayed out in front of him like a broken marionette dumped in a corridor, strong hands tried to touch every inch of him at once, checking, feeling, from his head to his toes. 

“John?” 

“Rodney? Come on; time to get coherent. I need you with me here, pal.” 

“John?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” John was looking right at him and Rodney could feel his hand pressed against his cheek. 

“I know it’s you, you moron, who else would it be?”

John hitched a grin onto his cheek but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “How are you doing?” 

He was looking at Rodney with such concern, such – shit – such fear, that Rodney sat up a little straighter and did his best to clear his head. “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. I’m fine. I mean my arm’s broken and my neck hurts but I’m alive, right?” 

“Yes, good, okay, good,” John sighed and this time the grin did just about reach him eyes. 

“Are you okay?” Rodney asked, reaching out to him. 

“I’m good,” John said as he stretched out his hand and falteringly touched Rodney’s face. Rodney turned into the touch and shamelessly pressed his lips to John’s palm.

John leaned forward and kissed him, hot and fast and full of thank-god-we’re-alive. 

“Is he dead?” Rodney asked nodding towards the room he’d just been dragged from. 

“Definitely.” 

“You sure?” 

John nodded, “absolutely, he’s dead.” 

“Did I – I shot him, was it my bullet that - ?” Rodney stuttered to a halt not sure whether he wanted to know. 

“I put a shot in his head, Rodney. Mine was the kill shot,” John said gently. 

Before Rodney had time to do more than nod there were voices, Marines coming round the corner, fully armed and ready. Then Teyla was kneeling in front of him, blessed Teyla with her gentle touch and soothing voice and Ronon, a battle-ready warrior standing over them all, growling at anyone who tried to get near his team. 

Rodney felt the overwhelming urge to pass out cold, but he didn’t, instead he smiled at Teyla and used his good hand to push a strand of her hair behind her ear for her when she told him it was time to go home. John carefully wrapped Rodney’s arm in a field sling and spent the walk back to the ‘gate with his hand pressed warmly against Rodney’s lower back – a constant comforting presence at his side. Rodney used the time it took them to reach the ‘gate to bitch at Ronon for missing the final showdown with Kolya and for carrying too many knives and not enough power bars. He made it back to Atlantis, knowing his friends were safe – at least for now, life was anything but predictable in the Pegasus Galaxy. 

~*~

Rodney stood out on the balcony near the living quarters, it was late in the day and Atlantis was being treated to another impressive sunset that painted the sky in the richest golds and reds. He watched idly as the white cap of a wave scrawled a signature of foam across the surface of the sea. 

Haemon had been treated to a short trip by ‘gate then by ‘Jumper to a world with no Stargate and very few visiting traders. Those that had gone on the mission had been debriefing for days as they’d gone through every moment, every detail of Kolya’s demise; justified every action that lead to the death of a man that no one mourned. 

Rodney heard the door slide open behind him and looked down at the cast on his left arm, waiting for John to come to him. He didn’t have to wait long, mere seconds before a shoulder pressed against his, lending warmth, bringing comfort. 

“Hey,” John said quietly. 

“Hey,” Rodney turned to look at him and had to smile as the wind lifted John’s hair, twisting it around wildly – not even nature could resist playing with this man. 

“How’s the arm?” 

“Healing,” Rodney said, absently poking at the cast, “Carson says he’s not worried. Easy for him, I’m the one with a broken limb.” 

John grinned and Rodney realized something was bothering him, John only grinned like that when something was bugging him. 

“What’s the matter?” 

John sighed, “I yelled at Elizabeth.” 

Rodney fought the urge to laugh, for all the years John Sheppard spent ‘sticking it to The Man’ he really hated being on Elizabeth’s shit list. 

“Is she still glaring at you in the corridors?” 

“No, now she’s being really nice to me to make me feel like a complete asshole,” John said, rolling his eyes. 

“Then why’d you yell?” 

“Because she was hounding me to go through the details again, so I told her, then she asked if there was anyway, in my opinion, that the outcome could have been different if I’d waited a few more seconds and made a more informed decision.”

“Ah, so you yelled at her that the outcome would have been very different because Atlantis would now be without its chief scientist?” 

“More or less,” John shrugged uncomfortably. 

“More or less?” Rodney prodded. 

“I may have lost it a little when I was explaining that Kolya would have strangled you to death.” 

“So let me get this straight – you shouted at her, probably included some cheap shot about her preferring I was dead over Kolya.” John winced and Rodney rolled his eyes. “You idiot. Then you got all emotional and, being you, you didn’t know how to deal with it and tried to shut the whole conversation down and make a run for it, she tried to stop you, you furrowed your brow and agreed to everything she suggested just to get out of there and now you have to talk to me and go and see Heightmeyer?” 

“I’m sorry, were you there? Were you hiding under the table in her office or something?” John asked sulkily. 

“No, I just know you pretty well,” Rodney sighed, leaning a little more weight against John’s shoulder. 

“Apparently, yeah,” John mumbled, leaning back. 

“And now Elizabeth is being really nice to you because she - ”

“Thinks I’m a complete basket case? Yeah, that’s about it.” 

Rodney laughed; he couldn’t help it. 

John turned and looked at him, grinning good-naturedly. Then the grin slipped and a genuine smile seemed to pull its way onto his face. 

“What?” Rodney asked, smiling back. 

“Nothing,” John said, ducking his head and rubbing the back of his neck, “just – s’a good look on you; when you laugh, I mean.” 

“Umm, thanks.” 

“It’s getting dark,” John said, apropos of nothing. 

“Sun’s gone down, genius.” 

John elbowed him, “I can see that.” 

Under the flimsy cover of encroaching darkness, John straightened up and moved behind Rodney, sliding his hands round his chest and pulling them close together.  
Rodney left his cast resting on the railing but his good hand came up to cover John’s hands and squeeze gently at his fingers. There was still the edge of a bruise visible on John’s wrists from the time he’d spent restrained. Rodney gave in to the urge and pulled John’s wrist up to his lips, trailing them gently over the soft, tender skin. John rested his chin on Rodney’s shoulder, close enough that he could graze his cheek over Rodney’s neck and send warm breath over skin chilled by the evening air. 

“John,” Rodney murmured, not sure if he was going to say anything further or whether he just needed to taste the name on his lips. 

“Hmm?” 

“I shot him,” Rodney said, without meaning to. He felt John tense behind him and for a second he almost expected him to let go but then strong, deft fingers burrowed under his shirt and stretched warmly against bare skin of his stomach.

“Nothing I say here is gonna help,” John said sadly, “but you were doing what you had to, he would have killed you, Rodney – and I shot him too - ”

“I – the problem isn’t that I shot him, as such,” Rodney interrupted, “or maybe it is, I don’t know. I really don’t know; but I don’t regret it, John, I don’t regret shooting that bastard, I nearly did it earlier. I was standing there with my gun pressed against his head the way you taught me never to do and I really wanted to pull the trigger. He hurt you, he tried to kill you and the power that gave him over me was terrifying because I wasn’t prepared to stop myself. I wanted him dead.”

“I understand,” John said quietly, “I know exactly how that feels.” He brought his hand up to skim lightly over the fading bruises that still circled Rodney’s neck. “Look at where we are, at what we do, every day could be a battle – are you sure this is what you want?” John asked carefully. 

“Yes,” Rodney answered, certainty painting his words, “without a doubt. There’ll be battles, yes, but there’ll always be quiet moments, like this, when it’s just us and the rest of the galaxy can go…”

“Go fuck itself?” John suggested wickedly. 

“Yeah,” Rodney grinned and reached up to squeeze the hand John had rested on his shoulder. 

John untangled them and stepped back long enough for Rodney to turn around, then he leaned in and kissed him, sweetly claiming his mouth and giving him everything in return. 

Rodney groaned, “bed?” 

“God, yes,” John kissed him again. “I still…’you know, whatever’…you,” he added.

“I should hope so. I ‘you know, whatever’ you too, you idiot.” 

“Good,” John grinned and grabbed him and pulled him into another kiss. 

.xx.


End file.
